


Backstage Access

by Eleanor_Fenyx



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, F/M, John Watson - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, Live Theatre Sherlock AU, M/M, Sherlock AU, Sherlock Alternate Universe, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Theatre
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eleanor_Fenyx/pseuds/Eleanor_Fenyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is the prima donna of the theatre troupe he works with, but he hits a little stumbling block when he meets John Watson, the new props master, who refuses to worship the ground Sherlock walks on. (Rated M for later chapters)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pre-Show

“Alright Anderson, let’s go to preshow,” John heard the stage manager say into her headset to the lights booth as she strode across the backstage area just behind the traveller, no doubt checking to make sure that everything was running smoothly, though by now she knew that John would have everything under control.

John was the newest member of the acting troupe he was with and it was taking a while for him to get used to the new position as props master, and he was having a bit of trouble getting everybody in the cast to listen to him, thanks at least in part to his diminutive stature. But he was slowly gaining some respect as he proved that he could handle things smoothly and efficiently, keeping everything under control even when there were problems. The only main problem he was having now was getting the stars of the show to quit bossing him around like he was their personal lackey that was at their beck and call to take care of every little thing that needed doing.

“John!” John looked up when he heard the director, Greg Lestrade, calling for him and he stopped what he was doing as he rearranged the prop table, the only still person in the hectic pre-dress rehearsal bustle of actors checking their costumes and double-checking their props before they got started. “John, where’s Sherlock?” Greg asked, his voice harried and his cheeks slightly flushed – John figured he’d been busy running himself into the ground trying to be everywhere at once, not trusting the finer details to any of the people who were directly under him, not even Sally, who Greg trusted enough to be the stage manager.

“Sorry, haven’t seen him Greg. Though his lot just came out of makeup and costume, so he might be there.” John grimaced in sympathy as Greg nodded once jerkily before heading off in the direction of the dressing rooms, chattering into his headset the whole time, no doubt trying to check on everything even as he focused on one problem that seemed to be a problem a _lot_ – Sherlock Holmes, the prima donna of the show.

John just sighed and shook his head, pushing away the question of where Holmes was in favour of worrying about the tray of wine glasses (that had thankfully been empty) that had just hit the floor as somebody had bumped into poor Molly Hooper, who was far too clumsy for her own good. John strode over and grabbed a nearby broom before stooping down to pick up the bigger pieces, planning to just sweep up the smaller pieces after that.

“Oh God John, I’m so sorry,” Molly fretted, her dainty hands fluttering nervously as she hurried to pick up the pieces of glass off the floor while people still bustled by and called out instructions and questions to each other.

“It’s alright, Molly, let’s just get this cleaned up before we start rehearsing.  This is what we’ve got the extra glasses for,” John reassured the anxious woman with a smile, waiting until Molly had returned his smile before continuing to pick up the pieces, his fingers working with a quick, calm efficiency that was a surprisingly accurate representation of everything he did. Once the glass had been picked up and thrown in the bin and the floor had been swept, John turned to the next problem at hand, that turned out to be nothing as the people who worked under him were learning his methods and procedures quickly, therefore minimising accidents and problems.

John was just beginning to think that the rest of the rehearsal was going to go without a hitch when he heard the metallic clang of a clothes rack hitting the ground from the direction of the dressing rooms and John rolled his eyes even as everybody stopped and looked curiously over in that direction – as if they didn’t know what was going on. Sure enough, just like John had thought he would, Sherlock came striding out of his personal dressing room wearing nothing but his costume trousers and a blue silk robe, his nose in the air as he strode over toward the stage doors that led outside, a pack of cigarettes situated in its usual spot in his pocket. John sighed heavily as the haughty man strode past him without a glance, and John hurried over to help Mrs Hudson pick up the clothes rack, stepping back as her costume girls came to help her put the clothes back on the hangers.

“Every time,” the costume mistress sighed as she went back to bustling around and rearranging the costumes where the actors had messed them up as they’d checked them. “Honestly I don’t know where he gets that attitude from,” she continued, sounding more than a little flustered. “We all know he’s talented, that doesn’t mean he gets the right to order us all about and throw a tantrum whenever something doesn’t go according to whatever plans he has in mind that keeps to himself until they’re not followed,” Mrs Hudson continued, the young girls around her murmuring sympathetically as they hung up the last of the scattered clothing.

John stepped out of the costume department as Mrs Hudson shooed him away good-naturedly and he just returned to his own section of the backstage area, doing a final check on props before leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and tipping his head back – they wouldn’t be starting until Sherlock deigned to join them again as his co-star wouldn’t rehearse unless Sherlock was there with her, not even if someone fed her the lines that Sherlock would normally be saying. Some rubbish about needing ‘chemistry’ to perform properly, which John found to be absolutely ridiculous.

“Alright guys, let’s all just take a ten minute break, yeah?” Donovan sighed heavily as she walked more slowly across the backstage from the opposite direction. “Have to wait ‘til the freak gets done smoking a damn cigarette since all our lives apparently revolve around _his_ time schedule,” she added in a mutinous murmur that John was fairly sure nobody else was supposed to hear. John just stayed still, listening to the clamour die down into quiet murmuring and the occasional laugh as everybody stopped working and started relaxing. Everything was ready for rehearsal and the other actors were all in costume, all that was left was for Holmes to deign to grace them with his presence again.

 

After pitching two more mild fits throughout the duration of the rehearsal, Sherlock Holmes performed his usual disappearing act as the crew was busy taking care of the props Holmes and some of the other cast had left lying around on the stage, tidying everything up and making sure that everything was back in its proper place. A few of the kinder actors stayed behind to help, but the rest of them headed out after a lazy attempt at pretending to care that they were basically being taken care of by the crew. John, whose patience was legendary among the cast _and_ the crew of the show, was actually finding himself getting rather irritated with the histrionics of a full grown man that wasted everybody’s time and created more work for the people who already had quite a bit on their plates, running a big show like this for cast members who had no interest in helping out with such ‘menial’ tasks.

There was always so much hype amongst fans and critics for the wonderful and fantastic Sherlock Holmes, a master of the stage as well as the occasional movie or television appearance, and John was starting to figure that no one ever had the nerve to talk about what a complete arse Sherlock Holmes really was. He was lazy, rude, and entirely self-absorbed. And while there was no denying that the man was extremely talented on stage, behind the scenes he was a completely different person, and not one that John had any respect for. It amazed him, though, that the rest of the crew and cast treated the man with the utmost servility and obedience – even _Greg_ treated Holmes with some degree of deference – when there was truly nothing that set Holmes that far apart except for his ability to act and the obnoxious attitude he maintained when not on stage. It was utterly ridiculous, and John’s legendary patience was wearing thin with the man.

 

John made sure that absolutely everything within his realm of control was in its proper place and locked away safely before heading out, his coat thrown over a shoulder and his hat cocked jauntily on his head as he exited the stage into the cool air of the late evening, listening to the sounds of the city at the end of the small alley mingling with the metallic clinking of keys as Greg locked the stage door behind the two of them.

“Alright, after tonight I think you could use a stiff drink about as much as I could,” Greg said to John once he’d turned around, a sheepish smile on his lips.

“Hm I couldn’t agree more,” John said with a chuckle, shoving his free hand into his pocket as he and Greg started off toward the end of the alley toward the corner pub that catered mostly to the actors and crews that occupied the few nearby theatres at any given time.

 

\-----

 

Sherlock was surrounded by imbeciles, and he was seriously controlling himself to two or three fits a day. No matter how self-deprecating and defacing everyone was toward him, Sherlock could never stop seeing the stupidity and petty issues of the people who surrounded him. Sherlock’s passion was acting, especially on stage where there was immediate feedback from audiences and the rush of unpredictability that accompanied performing in live theatre, but he would have so much preferred that there was a way for him to be completely alone when he acted, he wished that he could control every aspect of what it took to create a theatre productions so that he would never have to deal with people again.

Sherlock knew that everyone thought he was a twat, though Sherlock definitely didn’t care in the least as it didn’t affect the way anybody acted toward him to his face, and it never affected their efficiency in performing their duties. Besides, even if it did impede performance he wouldn’t have cared what these morons thought of him as there was no way he’d ever bother to associate himself with them in any way other than what he had to.

As much as his body was a tool, something to be taken care of, the people around him were tools as well, all of them simply a means to an end that was a production that created a new world on a stage, with Sherlock at its centre. There was one person, though, that didn’t seem to want to treat Sherlock as everybody else did, and that one man had started to get under Sherlock’s skin, though he’d never let on of course. John Watson, the props master, was a man of military background in several ways with an indescribable inclination toward the theatre arts, and proved to be adequate at handling the typical problems that always seemed to come from the props departments no matter where Sherlock was working or who he was working with. But there was something about him that just irritated Sherlock more than everyone else did, and he was incapable of figuring out what it was, which of course just frustrated him even more.

After rehearsal had finished, Sherlock left the theatre and went straight to his flat as he always did, where he typically spent the evening alone playing violin and drinking wine if it had been an okay day, or lounging on the couch and drinking vodka if it hadn’t been. Tonight was a vodka night, definitely, and once Sherlock got home he went straight to the liquor cabinet and started swilling the harsh alcohol, even before he’d gotten to the couch. Sherlock knew that everyone else was probably at the pub that was at the end of the alley containing the stage door, and he also knew that his fellow actors assumed that he went home to a girlfriend (or boyfriend) every night and shagged her/his brains out or some other rubbish like that, and Sherlock had no interest of disabusing them all of their silly notions as he wasn’t exactly proud of the truth. If nothing else, it wasn’t something he wanted spread around, and actors were notorious gossips.

Sherlock’s mobile vibrated in his pocket when he was a few sips into the bottle and already feeling a pleasant buzz starting up in his brain that blocked out the myriad voices that were either reciting lines as well as going over blocking or just reminding him of every deduction he’d made throughout the day. Sherlock glanced down before he could focus on ignoring it and he slid the phone out of his pocket, cradling it in his long fingers and looking at a text from Greg.

_Come on out and socialise for once, Sherlock. One of these days you’re going to regret not making and keeping a few acquaintances. This business is all about connections, you know. –GL_

Sherlock just scoffed and ignored the message, taking another long pull of the alcohol that then seared its way down his throat, sitting warmly in his stomach even as he took another sip and tilted his head back, closing his eyes to avoid staring at the blank ceiling above his head. Sherlock’s mobile buzzed again and this time he ignored it completely in favour of dropping the phone to the floor and stretching out on his couch, his feet dangling off one arm as his hand hung over the edge of the couch, the bottle resting just barely on the floor as Sherlock breathed slowly in and out, trying to further suppress his thoughts with the help of the white noise of the alcohol.

Sherlock’s mobile started buzzing incessantly on the floor beside the bottle and he refused to answer it, knowing that it was just Lestrade calling him to tell him that he needed to get out and actually talk to the imbeciles that passed for good company in Greg’s view. Sherlock just continued drinking until he knew it wasn’t safe to drink any more of the strong liquor and then he just laid there for the rest of the night, drifting in and out of sleep as the night wore on and his flat stayed dark and silent around him, the sounds of the city muffled through walls and distance and alcohol, letting him rest fitfully, but at least it was rest.

Sherlock knew that had he been normal it would’ve been a bad idea to get drunk pretty much every night, but it never impeded his performance when he was on stage and that was simply because acting was the Work, and the Work was always more important than any sort of physical discomfort Sherlock felt, though when he was really hung over, his attitude offstage was akin to that of a child with the flu, and not a pleasant child at that. So Sherlock drank to drown everything out, and the next day he performed perfectly as he always did. And he was fairly sure that he was content, if not happy.


	2. Dress Rehearsal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of Sherlock's history, and a bit of failed seduction backstage.

“Watson!” John sighed heavily as he heard Sherlock’s now-familiar imperial baritone commanding his name from his dressing room, and John wished, as he did every day several times a day, that Sherlock wasn’t so good at projecting his voice so that maybe sometimes John could just pretend he hadn’t heard and could actually make Sherlock get his lazy arse out of his bloody chair and actually come and ask him for something like a considerate human being. But of course that was too much to ask for and John just shared a long-suffering look with one of his prop crew before setting down the glass he was cleaning to head across the entire backstage to where Sherlock’s dressing room was.

“What?” John asked rudely – he’d decided weeks ago that if Sherlock was going to be rude to him then John was going to be rude right back, though not to the same degree – and he leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest and fisting his hands rhythmically as he tried to control his irritation.

“Tell your incompetent crew that they’re making far too much noise,” Sherlock sniffed disdainfully and John just looked at Sherlock in sheer disbelief. “I can’t concentrate,” Sherlock added, making John scoff.

“Right. No, I don’t think I will. Seeing as how they’re simply doing their jobs,” John said in his most neutral voice before turning on his heel and walking away again, his shoulders tense under his dark jumper, and he just shook his head in exasperation before brushing it off, resuming his pleasant manner just in time to start telling his crew what to do again, though his interference was becoming less and less as everybody learned where things went and how to move around each other in the most efficient way possible.

“What did the Freak want?” Sally asked as she appeared beside him, her clipboard in her hands and her headset dangling around her neck, meaning that she wasn’t as stressed as she could be. John just rolled his eyes at the name Sally (and pretty much everyone else) called Sherlock behind his back but he answered her question anyway without a comment on the name.

“To tell the props crew to quiet down,” John sighed, rubbing a hand against the back of his head. “I honestly don’t understand why he’s in the theatre business if he’s so intolerant of people and noise,” John added, finally giving voice to a thought that had been nagging at him from his second week with this particular acting troupe.

“He owed Greg a favour at first,” Sally said quietly, startling John as the tone of her voice implied that she was revealing something deeply personal. “He used to be a pretty messed up guy, you know? Heavy drugs, drinking, fighting, all that sort of stuff. Greg found him passed out in an alley one night and got him some help, and in return he only asked that Sherlock use that brain of his to try to act in a show that was doing pretty badly, and to my knowledge Sherlock only accepted because his brother gave him a choice between acting in the show or going to rehab. Sherlock obviously chose to act. He loves the acting, he just can’t stand the necessity of dealing with other people involved in acting in theatre.”

“Why doesn’t he just go to film then?” John asked, his view of Sherlock changing just a little bit in light of this new information about the unpleasant man.

“He likes the live audience; he gets off on it, on the immediate response, the praises to his brilliance from the critics and patrons alike. Film, he swears, is pointless and repetitive, whereas live theatre will always provide new challenges to focus on, new things to do as even doing the same show over and over will provide changes and screw-ups to deal with, simply because it’s all live on stage. He fumes about any mess-ups of course, but since he usually fixes them, he always gets the credit for being a tremendous actor which we all know is what he’s really after. He’s great at what he does, don’t get me wrong, but I’d do my best to stay away from him if I were you. From what I’ve seen, he’s not the sort of person you’d want to get close to. Anderson likes to call him the house psychopath, and I agree with him on the psychopath part. Just be careful, yeah?” Sally finished with a small but obviously smug smirk on her lips and John looked at her curiously as she slipped her headset over the top of her head and instantly started relaying instructions to the light booth and started asking Greg questions, coordinating the intricate dance of technology that would aid the actors in telling the story they were performing.

John valued Sally’s opinion, he really did, but at the same time he couldn’t help but feel that maybe ‘psychopath’ was a bit of a stretch even when it came to Sherlock, and so he just sort of wrote it off and got back to work, figuring that he wouldn’t even think about it since it didn’t really concern him one way or the other if Sherlock was a bit weird, that was Sherlock’s business. But John was definitely going to see if he couldn’t get the haughty man to start treating at least him with a little more respect that John felt he deserved as he worked hard to make sure that the show was running smoothly – at least the part he was concerned with – and it was a thankless job to be on the crew of a production anyway without someone getting a prima donna attitude.

John returned to his job without another thought toward Sherlock’s ridiculous request and when rehearsal finally got started (after a normal temper tantrum from Sherlock…again) it was to find that everything was running just as John would have it, his crew working efficiently and silently as they went through the process of taking props to the wings so the actors could get back on stage on time and taking props to and from the stage during each scene change. Everything went according to plan, thank God.

 

\-----

 

Sherlock stared at John in astonishment when he denied Sherlock before heading back out to the main backstage floor again, and Sherlock couldn’t believe that he’d just been effectively snubbed by a _crew member._ Dear God, did these people have no respect for the actors who were their whole reason for even having a job? A show without actors wouldn’t be a show at all, and then the crew would be utterly worthless. Did Watson not realise that at the moment, his job depended on whether or not Sherlock was willing to cooperate and perform? Up to this point, the man had done everything Sherlock had told him to, what made tonight any different?

It was utterly nonsensical, and the unsolvable mystery of it drove Sherlock to another fit of frustration that exacerbated his headache to the point where it was screaming behind his eyes and he found himself shouting at and insulting anyone he crossed paths with until he reached the blessed fresh air of the alleyway. Well, fresh wasn’t necessarily the proper term, but at least it was air that was faintly scented with rubbish as opposed to the familiar but cloying smell of too many stressed out people in one place mixed with the powdery, dry, chemical smell of make up and hair spray and other products that were all needed as part of the costuming process.

Sherlock took a few deep breaths and then lit a cigarette as he usually did when he had to step outside, taking his time to finish it as he leaned against the wall before heading back inside. Everyone stirred into action as he re-entered the theatre and it was a balm to Sherlock’s nerves as it seemed everyone was reminded that he was so central to the continuation of the show that everyone stopped working when he wasn’t preparing to go on stage, that they were all waiting on him so that they could get back to their jobs.

The rehearsal went as smoothly as anyone could have hoped at this particular stage in the rehearsal process, and Sherlock was calmer when he got off stage. As Sherlock was helped out of his costume his thoughts again returned to the enigma of John Watson, a man who had seemed so plain upon first sighting who seemed to suddenly hold some sort of mystery that Sherlock, _Sherlock,_ couldn’t begin to explain away, and while that had rankled at first when Sherlock was irritated by the clanging dishes and the sound of people chattering and shouting to each other, now, after the flash of emotion had worked its way out of his system, Sherlock simply found it to be an interesting puzzle that needed solving, nothing more.

Once Sherlock was alone after the girls from the costume department had removed his discarded costumes (once he was in his robe again, of course) Sherlock went to his mirror to start carefully wiping away the thick stage make up that hid how pale he was in reality, and he stared at the reflection of his own eyes as he tried to dissect the problems Watson presented and came up blank, for the most part. It was strange, that Sherlock could look at so many people and predict how they would behave in any given circumstance, could tell what they’d had for lunch and who they’d had it with, could tell where they’d been that day and usually the day before..he could tell just about everything. And yet, while he could tell those things about John to, there was still something missing and Sherlock could fathom its edges, could touch on that hint of blankness that stumped his brilliant mind, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to illuminate that one area that was so dark he couldn’t see what it contained, and thoughts of this problem were enough to keep him fully occupied until he heard a familiar and shrill voice calling out some ridiculous nickname for him.

“Sherly! Oh Sherly darling, I need to talk to you!” Sherlock just rolled his eyes and sighed heavily as he heard the ever-present click of high heels that accompanied the voice of Irene Adler as she approached the door to his dressing room – the woman was good on stage and incredible at getting dressed and undressed quickly, which meant that Sherlock could never escape her presence when he stayed just a little later than usual to remove his make up in his dressing room as opposed to doing it at his flat.

Sherlock didn’t respond as there was a clicking knock on his door (acrylic nails, freshly applied that day to make that slightly sharper tap on the wood of the door of nails that weren’t yet dull from daily wear and tear) but the door opened anyway, and Sherlock just continued to wipe the caked powder and cream from his cheeks and forehead as a hand found his shoulder.

“Hello there stranger,” Irene purred and again, Sherlock didn’t comment though he did refrain from rolling his eyes since she was there to see. “I never get to see you off stage any more unless you pass by me while you’re having one of your little fits,” she simpered, setting Sherlock’s teeth on edge and making him wish he could go back to the relative quiet of being alone in his room with the sounds of everybody else firmly on the _other_ side of his door. “I was thinking we should go to dinner, you know? See each other a little bit apart from just being on stage together,” Irene added boldly, clearly with no thought of rejection crossing her mind.

Well more the fool her if she thought she was going to get away with actually being seen in public with Sherlock Holmes.

“I appreciate the offer, Irene,” Sherlock said icily, obviously insincere, “but I find myself to be thoroughly uninterested in eating dinner either out in a restaurant or alone in either my flat or yours, so I would be obliged if you would leave,” Sherlock continued, returning his attention to himself, sure that that refusal would be more than enough to deter Irene. No such luck.

“Oh sweetie we can skip dinner,” Irene continued as if Sherlock hadn’t just coldly refused her offer. Sherlock didn’t comment as her hand slipped forward from his shoulder to caress his chest through his thin robe, he just continued to remove the makeup with careful swipes of the cloth in his hand, perfectly willing to wait out Irene’s patience until she just left.

“If the point of our outing was to go to dinner, then I can see no purpose in avoiding the experience altogether simply because I am not hungry. I am not interested in going anywhere but my flat – _alone_ – and I fully intend to stay there for the remainder of my evening. Now, if you would be so kind as to leave, I would have you close the door as you left,” Sherlock responded in a firm refusal that spoke of his disinterest in no uncertain terms. His teeth ground together as Irene simply lowered herself gracefully onto the couch behind Sherlock against the opposite wall and curled up like a cat, slowly removing her shoes and rearranging her own silken robe to reveal a little more skin without leaving much up to the imagination.

“Mr Holmes, you are a cold man. But I’d be perfectly willing to overlook that if you would just agree to go to dinner with me and have a little bit of much-needed fun afterward. Fun of a distinctly and unquestionably sexual nature, of course, if I’m to be completely indelicate, which I apparently must be to convince you. We’re co-stars, darling, which in the eyes of many means that we’re already sleeping together – why shouldn’t we be?” Irene asked coquettishly, using every ounce of charm she knew she had to attempt to beguile Sherlock into taking her to bed. But Sherlock, naturally, was almost completely unmoved and he spared her one disdainful glance before returning to the task he was more interested in than sex.

“If anything your offer of sex has made the proposition less desirable even than before, though that was clearly not the intended purpose. Simply because we are together on stage for nearly three fourths of the entire show, I do not see how that purports the action of copulation on our part, and therefore I feel no obligation to fuel the gossip of idiots and morons, nor will I humour you in your whims as they are completely contrary to my own. Goodbye, Ms Adler.” Sherlock was confident that a third scathing rejection would cause the woman to leave him alone as he’d first asked, and he was pleased to be proven correct when Irene just stared at him for a moment before standing up abruptly and padding off on her still-bare feet, slamming the door behind her. Sherlock simply finished removing his make up and got dressed again before heading out of his dressing room to escape to the quiet of his flat to further ponder the problem of John Watson. 


	3. Dramatics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tempers flare up backstage.

John couldn’t believe it but it seemed that since he’d refused to listen to what Sherlock had told him to do, the man just seemed to call for him _more_ , asking him to do trivial or menial things that he could certainly accomplish for himself, and more often than not John just ended up walking away when Sherlock asked him to do something for him unless it was something that Sherlock would logically need help with and he wasn’t just trying to be difficult. It hadn’t seemed like it could be possible, but John was even more frustrated than before, and he was just glad that his part of the crew were now so competent at their jobs that John could actually afford to spend time running back and forth across the backstage to at least pretend to cater to the childish whims of Sherlock Holmes.

“Watson!”

John huffed out a frustrated breath – today had not been a good day, and for some reason the rehearsal was already starting out with a lot of problems, most of them from the props department, unfortunately – and John seriously didn’t want to deal with Sherlock at the moment. When John reached the door to Sherlock’s dressing room, he stopped and crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw clenched slightly as he ground his teeth together, just looking at Sherlock expectantly, waiting to hear whatever insane demand he was going to ask for next.

“I need you to fetch my mobile for me,” Sherlock murmured absently as he read some thick volume that looked curiously like a textbook of some sort. John sighed heavily and uncrossed his arms only to run a hand through his hair before crossing them tightly again.

“Where is it?” John asked, glancing around to see if it was at least somewhere in Sherlock’s dressing room so he wouldn’t have to run around the whole theatre to search for Sherlock’s phone. When he didn’t see it immediately he looked back to Sherlock, his foot itching to tap impatiently as Sherlock didn’t respond immediately.

“Pocket,” Sherlock practically hummed and John looked at him suspiciously.

“What pocket?” John asked when Sherlock didn’t offer any more explanation than that, seeming to believe that John would just intuitively know what he was talking about.

“Dressing gown.” John stared at Sherlock for a brief moment in shock, though he figured it shouldn’t surprise him that Sherlock’s request was outlandish yet again.

“You can’t be serious,” John scoffed, though he already knew the answer, of course. But there was no way he was going to get Sherlock’s mobile for him when it was literally in the pocket of the dressing gown he was currently wearing.

“I am utterly serious. Now hurry up, I’ve got an important message to send,” Sherlock responded, still managing to sound haughty even though he was engaged in reading as well as talking quietly.

John huffed out an irritated breath and stepped into the dressing room properly, shutting the door behind himself a little more loudly than was really necessary, finally making Sherlock look up at him.

“Problem?”

“Yes, I have a problem,” John growled in response to Sherlock’s falsely innocent question and he stepped forward until he was pretty much in Sherlock’s face, wondering if maybe that would finally get him to listen to what John had to say. “I am so sick and tired of you using me and the rest of the crew as your personal assistants and treating the rest of the cast like dirt, like we’re all here because our lives are just completely centred around you,” John practically snarled through his teeth and he had the momentary satisfaction of watching first surprise and then confusion flash across Sherlock’s face. “We are not your damn servants, and we sure as hell don’t have time to run errands for your lazy arse when you are perfectly capable of doing everything yourself. Now if you need help because you’re doing something important related to the show and you’d like to ask one of us to help you, that’s fine, that’s part of what we’re here for, but we are all so bloody tired of hearing you order everybody around and we’re even more irritated with your constant temper tantrums. So I’d suggest you get your bloody act together, Sherlock, or you will not like what I will have to say.”

John had a brief flash of warning before Sherlock was tossing the textbook aside and standing up abruptly – pushing John back a step in the process -  with anger etched onto his face and the tendons in his neck straining underneath his skin as Sherlock didn’t bother to keep his voice down as John had.

“How dare you speak to me like that!” Sherlock shouted, and though John knew that other people fled whenever Sherlock started yelling, he stood his ground – there was no way he was going to be afraid of a man like Sherlock Holmes who was basically just a child who was used to being spoiled. “The _only_ reason the crew is here is because the actors come and rehearse and perform! We could do all of this without you, so you’d better treat us better if you don’t want to lose your worthless job!”

John knew he shouldn’t have lost his temper, but it was hard to think rationally when Sherlock Holmes was completely negating his existence and his hard work in the theatre by his own life, and John couldn’t believe that there was a single person on the planet who could be so entirely selfish and self-centred that he thought that the lives of almost fifty people literally revolved around him.

“Without the crew you lot wouldn’t know what the hell you were doing with any of what we take care of, and you sure as hell wouldn’t be able to put on a good show – Do you think the lights and sound just magically come on? Or that your props just materialise in the wings to be handed off to you? Or that your costumes mysteriously move from the floor to the racks in the proper order, or that they stay clean simply because you’re so pure that you can’t possibly be getting your costumes dirty? Is that genuinely what you think?! Then Sherlock Holmes you are one of the biggest idiots I have ever met, I don’t give a shit if everyone here thinks you’re a genius. You need a wakeup call, and you need one badly,” John finished hotly before turning on his heel and storming out of the dressing room, leaving Sherlock to stare after him with whatever expression was on his face.

As John returned to his usual spot, it was to find everyone staring at him in shock and John just took a moment to get his anger back under control, scrubbing at his face with his hands like he was trying to wash it and wringing his hands together before tipping his head to pop his neck.

“Alright guys, let’s get back to work,” John said in his normally cheerful but obviously commanding voice, and he watched everyone stay still for a moment and then abruptly get back into action as they resumed working, all of them well used to getting over drama rather quickly.

 

\-----

 

As John stormed out of his dressing room, Sherlock stared after him with a mixture of confusion, anger, and a completely incongruous note of respect. He hadn’t expected that, to actually have something of a positive emotion from being shouted at – and _losing_ the argument – but he did, and he found himself wanting to find John and continue talking to him; John’s anger had revealed yet another facet of him that served to make Sherlock more confused as to what made the man so different and Sherlock wanted to know what he was like after he was angry, just to see if it was how other people behaved. Other people continued to be irritated for at least a little while after they were upset and would take it out on other people, but when Sherlock opened the door to his dressing room just a crack and peeked out, it was to find John behaving just as he always did without a hint of frustration in his voice, not even when Molly Hooper accidentally dropped a platter that then chipped at the corner. John just knelt down and murmured reassuringly to her as he helped her clean up a little bit.

Sherlock instantly retreated back into his room and shut the door, just trying to fathom that sort of personality. It didn’t follow any of the patterns that Sherlock saw repeated in the rest of the world. Everyone always wanted to say that they were different, that other people liked them because they were special or that they had a unique personality, but Sherlock always saw the same ones all over the place, which made people who wanted so badly to be individuals rather easy to classify into some group or other. There were, of course, small quirks that everyone had, but even those seemed to be a pattern after a while. But John was genuinely different. He seemed to be a combination of things that Sherlock had seen in other people, but had never seen together in one person, and it made him want to keep prying to continue to figure things out about John. What upset him, what made him genuinely happy, what else would make him angry? They were all questions that Sherlock wanted to find answers to, but he didn’t know how he would without continuing to talk to John, which he didn’t want to do.

Sherlock paced around his room in agitation, trying to force his mind to bend to the problem of learning about John without actually having to talk to him, and Sherlock figured that the only way he could do so would be to observe him interacting with other people, but then Sherlock would have to deal with the fact that he’d probably never see every single side of John’s personality like that, and he could never trust people’s reactions and he’d never be able to tell if John was being genuine or if he was putting up a front. The only way Sherlock could see himself figuring things out about John was to get close to him, which he _really_ didn’t want to do at all.

Just because he was interested in John’s personality that didn’t mean that Sherlock actually wanted to experience any emotions in return, whether it just be friendship or something else, and so as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he would probably just have to give up on learning more about the truly unique problem that John represented, which just rankled with Sherlock’s mind that was so accustomed to solving every problem he was presented with.

Sherlock huffed out an irritated breath and went over to his makeup table, plopping down in the chair and starting to smear the thick stage makeup on his pale skin with ruthless efficiency. Sherlock could hear everything that was going on backstage thanks to the poor insulation of the dressing rooms and as he applied the dark makeup to his face he could hear John giving directions and praising people whenever they did what he wanted without him having to ask, and Sherlock honestly felt a little sick to his stomach – and it took him nearly ten minutes to realise that it was shame curling in the pit of his stomach.

He wasn’t an idiot, he’d seen the logic of John’s argument, and it made him feel something he’d never felt before, which just irritated him more. John shouldn’t have been able to make him feel anything, let alone shame, but he had managed it somehow and Sherlock was irritated with him for it.

When Mrs Hudson sent in one of the men from the costume department to help him, Sherlock didn’t realise why the man was giving him odd looks until he’d finished getting dressed and the man had left again – Sherlock had been _polite_. It wasn’t a conscious decision on his part, but he’d been so wrapped up in thinking about how much he disliked what John had done to him that he’d forgotten to act how he always did, and the man had certainly noticed it.

By the time Sherlock came out of his dressing room just as the actual rehearsal was about to begin, he was getting a mixture of looks from different people. The people who had heard what had happened between him and John were shooting him furtive and concerned glances, probably assuming that Sherlock was about to explode into anger again. But others – mostly the people involved in the costume department – were looking at him with confusion and Sherlock could only assume that the man who had helped him get dressed had gone and told everyone around him that Sherlock hadn’t been himself, and that he’d actually been polite for once. Sherlock sighed heavily but didn’t bother to correct anyone, instead just heading to the stage right wing to wait for the cue to go ahead and start the show.

 

That night when Sherlock went home he was still thinking about John and how he’d responded to Sherlock’s anger. Sherlock hadn’t noticed it until he was thinking during a lull in his lines on stage, but when he’d been angry at John, the man hadn’t backed down like everyone else did, he’d stayed right in Sherlock’s face and had shouted right back, obviously not afraid of anything Sherlock could do to him. Sherlock had been irritated all over again as he’d realised that it was just yet another facet to John’s personality that he’d need to unravel.

And now as he went home and his frustration was cleansed from his body by the cigarette smoke curling down his throat and into his lungs and the chilly air against his cheeks, he realised that his respect for John was now much higher than his irritation, which should’ve worried him but it didn’t. After all, there was no reason for him to ever tell John that he at least respected him even if he didn’t like the man, and so there was no harm in him thinking that. He could act, everyone knew that, and so Sherlock figured that he could act backstage as well as on stage and he could pretend that nothing whatsoever had changed.

When Sherlock got home he went immediately to his room to set his keys down and strip down to his pants, slipping into one of his comfortable robes before heading into the kitchen. Normally he didn’t like to eat unless he was forced to, but there was just something about the way he could seem to physically feel his shame in his stomach that made him realise how empty it was, and though he didn’t have much food in his flat, he had enough to make some sort of meal.

He ate mechanically and forced himself to eat everything he’d made before heading to the liquor cabinet to pull out a bottle of scotch and a glass before heading over to the couch. He curled up on the floor between the couch and his coffee table and carefully set the glass on the table in front of him as he poured himself a glass of the high-quality alcohol, already looking forward to drowning out his odd emotions with drinking as he always did.

Sherlock’s mobile buzzed in the pocket of his dressing gown where he’d transferred it for some reason even though he never wanted to talk to people, and he pulled it out to read the message as he downed the first glass of scotch in a few burning gulps.

_I heard about what happened between you and John. Are you alright? –GL_

Sherlock could practically hear Greg asking him the question that he hadn’t expressed in his message, and that was ‘you’re not getting bad enough to get high again, are you?’ Sherlock sighed and ran a hand through his hair after setting the glass down and he decided that he’d finally tap out a response, simply because he knew that Greg was genuinely worried about him and Sherlock was still thankful enough to care that Greg worried.

_I’m fine, I’m just drinking. I’m not going to go out again tonight. –SH_

Sherlock figured that that was enough to reassure Greg that he wasn’t about to go out and buy any drugs (Lestrade knew that his flat was entirely clean) and so he set his mobile down on the floor and slid it away from himself, not wanting to have any contact with anyone else until the next day when it would be absolutely required. 


	4. Final Rehearsal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the night before the opening of the show, and Sherlock makes a rather surprising request to John once rehearsal is over.

“Hey John, can I talk to you for a minute?” John glanced up and felt his heart sink. He’d been worried that this was going to happen, and as he approached Greg he was so sure that he was about to get kicked out of the theatre that his heart was hammering and his fingers were trembling. The worry only grew when Greg pulled him off into one of the wings where nobody was standing just yet and John braced himself for a furious firing.

“Before yesterday, I would’ve sworn that there was nothing that could get through to Sherlock,” Greg sighed, and though John figured that he could probably take that as a sign that he wasn’t in trouble, he still couldn’t calm down. John watched as Greg shook his head a little and ran a hand through his hair and across his forehead. “But damn, John, whatever you said to him really made him sit down and reconsider things, I think. He’s not quitting!” Greg hurried to reassure John, probably in response to the expression on his face. “But yesterday after you shouted at him, he wasn’t absolutely horrid to the crew, and from what I hear today, the trend is sticking. Normally I’d be ridiculously upset that you told off my lead actor and made him angry enough to yell at you in return, but since we all seem to be benefitting from your intervention, I think I’m actually safe in thanking you.”

John stared at Greg, completely dumbstruck, and he managed a weak smile when Greg clapped a hand on his shoulder briefly.

“But as much as we’re all grateful to you for intervening and telling Sherlock off, I’m going to have to ask you not to do it again, at least not when you’re somewhere where anyone from the theatre can hear you. I don’t want people to get it in their heads that they can just go off and shout at the actors,” Greg continued with a small chuckle. John just nodded and offered up another weak smile in return, and then Greg nodded and walked away, already talking into his headset to check with Sally that everything was alright, and John was just relieved that he was able to go back his spot in the backstage since it meant that he hadn’t lost his job.

John was glad that Sherlock seemed to have listened to him or at least was shocked into silence or something as it meant that now Sherlock would stop being such an arse and making everybody’s lives miserable, and maybe the crew could start to actually enjoy their jobs like they were supposed to.

 

John leaned against the wall backstage during one of his increasing free moments, though he was more stressed than normal as the next night was opening night. Sherlock had still been insufferable since they’d gotten into their argument, but it was certainly an improvement from how he’d been, and John had actually been able to focus on his job properly, only having to deal with the occasional interruption from Sherlock.

It was amazing, really, how big of a change had come over the man within the span of a few days, and it was even more incredible that the change really had stuck during the last week of rehearsals. He wasn’t humble, and he certainly wasn’t nice, but he didn’t treat everyone like they were dirt any more – instead he just basically ignored every single person around him until he needed something.

John could practically feel the final rehearsal buzz of energy as everybody mentally prepared for opening night and it was one of his favourite parts of doing theatre, was the way everybody got so excited and energetic either because they were nervous or because they were ready to get the show over with. Though they’d only been in rehearsal for six weeks and this particular show would be running for two months already, more if it did well, and John knew that the people who just wanted it to be over so they could move on to the next show were going to be irritated with the length of the show after six weeks of rehearsal.

“Places for Act I!” John stood up straight and headed over toward the props tables as Sally’s order came from the stage and John flipped off the work lights as the lights came up on stage and Sherlock started the dialogue, and then John didn’t have much time for thought as he was suddenly walking back and forth across the back of the stage as usual, handling props and taking them to the crew members waiting in the wings as well as making sure that everything was still running smoothly and that there weren’t suddenly any prop malfunctions when he wasn’t looking. It was a hectic job, but John didn’t mind as it gave him a chance to do something important, even if he didn’t get recognised for it.

John froze as he heard a crash and shattering glass, and he closed his eyes briefly before heading over toward the sound. There’d been a short pause in the dialogue going on onstage, but they picked it right back up, knowing that the best thing to do would be to let John handle whatever had just happened. John came across the problem when he reached the left wing and he sighed when he saw Dimmick, another of his props crew, scrambling to pick up a whole tray of glasses that had been filled with water that he’d dropped and shattered. Out of eight glasses, one was intact, and even that one was empty of the water it had contained. John instantly walked quickly backstage to grab a mop as Dimmick continued to pick up what he’d dropped, and when John returned to him he knelt down to murmur quietly in his ear so as not to disturb the people on stage.

“Alright, it’s fine. I want you to go into the storage room and find seven more glasses, we’ve got loads of boxes of dishes back there, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something, alright? I’ll finish cleaning this up.”

“John oh God I’m so sorry, I really am,” Dimmick murmured back fretfully, and John just shook his head a little bit and tried to offer the man a small smile.

“It’s okay, Dimmick, I promise. We’ll clean it up and it’ll be fine, but I need you to go get those glasses and fill them up as quickly as you can because this prop is supposed to go on stage in two minutes. Go,” John whispered urgently, and Dimmick stood up to stride off backstage while John went to work cleaning it all up as quickly as he could, cutting his hand a couple times in the process on the broken glass as he wasn’t paying attention to anything but the next piece he needed to pick up.

John just sighed as blood beaded up on his palms and fingers but he just continued to pick up the bigger glass shards, collecting them into a pile so he could sweep them up when he was finished.

John had just finished cleaning up the mess when Dimmick came back with the tray of glasses, obviously out of breath but also pleased that he’d managed to get what was needed before it was time to hand it off to Irene when she came offstage. Almost as soon as Dimmick appeared by John’s elbow, Irene was there, glaring at them for messing up, but not saying a word as she took the tray from Dimmick and turned back around to face the stage, waiting for her cue to go back out.

 

Once the scene was over, Sherlock was suddenly right in John’s face, and John was prepared to be berated, but instead Sherlock just leaned in to put his lips near John’s ear so he could talk in a baritone murmur.

“What happened?” Sherlock asked, his voice holding only a token of the amount of irritation it could, and John was honestly confused as to why Sherlock wasn’t positively irate.

“Dimmick dropped the glasses,” John responded haltingly after a moment, hoping to have covered up his surprise. “No big deal, it’s cleaned up and taken care of,” John added, though a moment later he realised that that probably sounded stupid as it was obvious that everything had been fixed since Irene had taken the new tray of glasses out onstage at the right time.

Sherlock just nodded and stepped back before turning around to face the stage again and John stared at the back of his head in confusion, wondering why Sherlock hadn’t exploded. Sure everyone knew that Sherlock wasn’t quite such an arse now, but the accident had been something that would’ve frustrated anybody, especially Sherlock. John just shook his head a little and ran a hand through his hair before heading to the props tables to make sure that everything was set up for the next scene.

 

\-----

 

Sherlock didn’t think he’d ever been so subdued since he’d started acting as he was after he and John had gotten into their argument. He wasn’t snappish, he didn’t yell at any of the crew on a daily basis any more, and he didn’t make outlandish requests. He knew that everyone thought that it was because John had finally gotten through to him when no one else could, and Sherlock supposed that that was true in its own way, but it wasn’t exactly right.

Sherlock’s mind was so consumed with figuring out John’s character and his personality that he simply didn’t have time to spare a thought to behaving as he usually did, and he was growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that other people talked to John more than he did and yet didn’t see that there was something genuinely unique about John. He’d heard crew and cast alike talking about John occasionally when other topics of conversation fell a little flat, and he knew that everyone thought that John was kind and good-hearted, but they also thought he was a little boring and more than a little plain, which just wasn’t true at all.

He still asked John for favours, of course, since that was the only way he could get close enough to the man to reliably observe his emotions and personality, but he made sure not to ask for too many, and not to ask John for anything ridiculous as he didn’t want John to shout at him again, he’d rather see the kinder and more neutral emotions the man possessed.

 

It wasn’t until the last night of rehearsals that Sherlock felt his first flash of true, genuine anger since John had won their argument and that was when he heard a loud crash and shattering from the left wing and Sherlock was prepared to march over there and demand to know what had happened for himself. But then Richard continued with the scene and so Sherlock had no choice but to continue as well as he heard the sound of glass scraping across the tile floor as he assumed John and whoever had messed up started cleaning up whatever had happened.

As the scene continued and Sherlock heard the quiet sounds of things being cleaned up, he started to realise that once the scene was over he would get his first chance to properly observe John as he wanted to, without watching him interact with other people and therefore give him possibly inconclusive results.

By the time the lights had gone down, Sherlock had calmed down enough to approach John with a slight modicum of his original frustration, and before he could think of how to approach the man, he was already right in front of him and leaning in to murmur in his ear. He could practically sense John’s surprise at being spoken to by him, and Sherlock was instantly cataloguing John’s reaction in his mind, putting this particular instance alongside every other interaction they’d had in the last week and trying to fit them all together to form an image of John’s personality.

Sherlock had meant to say something more after John had described what had happened, but Sherlock found himself suddenly needing distance as his mind told his hand to wrap around John’s wrist to take his pulse and Sherlock knew that that action would be unacceptable and unwanted. So instead he just turned around and faced the stage again to get ready to go back on once the scene change had been completed.

 

When the rehearsal had finished, there had been no more accidents and Greg had nothing to say to the cast except to get a fair amount of rest before they opened the next night and then the cast was free to go back to their dressing rooms to get dressed. Sherlock made his way quickly to his dressing room and shut the door behind himself firmly.

Sherlock stripped quickly out of his costume and slipped into his dressing gown before laying out on his couch, his head and feet hanging off either end of the sofa. Sherlock pressed his hands together and rested his fingertips against his mouth as he thought, and he carefully reconstructed his moment of abnormal contact with John, trying to analyse the reasoning behind why he’d wanted to actually have skin-to-skin contact with the man when he’d never had an interest in that before.

Sherlock stayed like that for a long time before he finally figured it out, and when he did he was far from happy, but he figured it was best to get things out of the way as soon as possible so this issue wouldn’t fester in him until he did something rash and unplanned. He called out for John in his usual way, making sure that his voice would carry above the din of everybody putting things up after the rehearsal and getting ready for the show the next night. Sherlock kept his eyes shut even as he heard his door open and he waited for a moment before talking.

“Shut the door,” Sherlock requested in a murmur, waiting to hear the dimming of the noises of dishes and props and costume hangers on metal racks before he opened his eyes and found John looking at him in a mixture of confusion and expectancy with a slight undertone of something that confused Sherlock: concern.

“Are you alright?” John asked, and Sherlock raised an eyebrow marginally.

“Perfectly fine,” Sherlock practically hummed before sitting up and gesturing for John to sit down in the armchair that was on the other side of the room – Sherlock spent a fair amount of time in his dressing room so he’d managed to get some nicer furniture into the room. Sherlock waited for John to sit down before he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, his palms pressed together between his knees as he leaned forward and studied John’s face carefully for a moment or two, only deepening the man’s confusion.

“What do you typically do after rehearsals?” Sherlock asked curiously and he could instantly tell that he’d confused John further as the man had been expecting for Sherlock to request another favour. Sherlock didn’t elaborate, though, instead he just looked expectantly at John until the man had gathered up enough of his wits to form a response.

“Uh..I usually just go to the corner pub with Greg or I go home,” John finally supplied hesitantly and with a small shrug. Sherlock nodded a little – that was to be expected – before he moved on to what he’d planned to say.

“I’m going to propose a deviation from your normal routine. I am running out of things to eat at my flat, and I would like to go out to dinner, though preferably not at a pub full of people I’m tired of dealing with. Would you like to join me?” Sherlock asked, his voice and face completely devoid of anything but a thin veneer of pleasantness over his intense curiosity and discomfort, though apparently it was enough to fool John who looked a little embarrassed.

John shuffled around a little bit in the chair, obviously trying to work out Sherlock’s motives for asking him to dinner, before he answered, the response clearly drawn from him out of surprise and not the result of conscious thought.

“Um…Sure. Yes,” John supplied unsurely, probably assuming that Sherlock was setting him up for something that he wouldn’t enjoy. But Sherlock still didn’t explain himself to the man, instead he just nodded and stood up to shrug out of his dressing gown and start getting dressed, uncaring of his mostly nude state as he was clothed in just his pants.

“Good. I’ll be ready in half an hour at the most,” Sherlock said as he stepped into a pair of dark trousers. “I’d suggest you be ready by that time as well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :) Comments are always appreciated, they keep my thoughts flowing as to what I can do in the next chapters :P Plus I just love to hear what you guys think of the story and stuff! Oh and thank you so much to everyone who has already commented :)


	5. Dinner and an Offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock go out to dinner at Angelo's and Sherlock makes a surprising offer to John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So before anybody gets all upset, yes, obviously, this chapter is heavily influenced by the dinner scene in A Study In Pink, and I'm not trying to copy it because I'm lazy. It's simply a way to use the show in a different context. So don't say I didn't warn you, some of the dialogue is taken directly from the show. Don't get offended or upset by it, otherwise you'll just look silly and I'll laugh derisively at you. Just so you know.

John stared at Sherlock in shock directly after he’d given his answer to Sherlock’s extremely unexpected and out of character offer, and John was instantly trying to figure out just what had possessed him to say yes. And he was at a complete loss. John sputtered as Sherlock told him to be ready to leave within thirty minutes and he stood up mechanically to head back out to the props tables, his mind still reeling. He didn’t like Sherlock, and he certainly didn’t want to spend any extra time with him, so why had he accepted an invitation to dinner? It literally made absolutely no sense whatsoever and John was thoroughly distracted as he monitored his crew putting everything away and taking care of what needed to be done.

When Sherlock appeared at his elbow half an hour later, John caught a few of his crew giving him curious glances that he didn’t acknowledge, instead he just looked over everything once more and said goodbye to Molly as she walked past him, glancing furtively at Sherlock out of the corner of her eye, before he turned to Sherlock and nodded, receiving a cold, business-like nod in return. Sherlock walked away and for a moment John seriously considered just staying where he was and not going out to dinner with Sherlock, claiming that he still had a few things to look over and make sure were still alright, but then John just sighed and followed after Sherlock, hating the fact that he probably just looked like a puppy following somebody along, desperately hoping for scraps.

John just rolled his eyes a bit at the comparison he’d come up with as he pushed out of the stage door just behind Sherlock, who looked rather impeccable for only giving himself half an hour to change out of his costume and get his stage makeup off. John walked in silence beside Sherlock until they reached the end of the street and then Sherlock hailed a cab and John began to wonder just where they were going, though he still didn’t say anything. He slid into the cab and Sherlock slid in beside him and still John expected the man to say something, to tell him where they were going or to even explain this sudden, odd, and utterly out of character invitation to dinner when Sherlock typically ignored anybody and everybody after rehearsal and left the theatre as soon as possible to go god knew where.

Finally after five extremely awkward minutes of silence John took a deep breath and looked over at Sherlock. “So would you mind telling me where we’re going or is it a secret?” John asked with a small smirk and a mere hint of irritation in his voice that mostly held confusion and just a little bit of pardonable curiosity. John held his ground as Sherlock turned his head to look at him with an expression that John wasn’t sure how to interpret but that almost looked smug or something and he waited for Sherlock to answer, even when it didn’t seem as if he would. Sherlock looked forward again and John figured they’d continue on in silence, but then the man answered him in that quiet baritone of his.

“A restaurant that an old acquaintance of mine owns,” Sherlock supplied, propping an elbow up on the door at the base of the window and slowly tracing a fingertip along the contours of his mouth. John raised an eyebrow a bit and turned to look out of his window, figuring he’d have to be satisfied with that as an answer. But then Sherlock was continuing and John listened though he didn’t turn back around. “He owes me a favour from several years ago,” Sherlock added ambiguously and John wondered for a brief thought if the man just loved being vague to feel superior or if he genuinely didn’t realise that when he spoke he just constantly left his listeners in the dark. And then, of course, John wondered if Sherlock was only like that to him as everybody else seemed to have an understanding of the man’s personality that John couldn’t fathom on his own.

Sherlock stayed silent after that and John did as well, neither of them doing so much as looking at each other or anywhere except out the windows until the cab pulled to a stop. John reached for his wallet but by then Sherlock was already passing over the fare and John didn’t even bother to protest, instead just going along with whatever Sherlock wanted to do as he’d been the one to invite John out, after all, and if he’d been uncomfortable with paying then John was fairly sure Sherlock was the sort of person who would’ve told him without worrying about being polite about it.

John looked up at the sign of the restaurant as Sherlock came around from the other side of the cab and he wasn’t sure why but he was mildly surprised to find that the restaurant actually seemed to be a rather nice one and he figured he’d be putting a sizeable dent in his wallet, though maybe it would be worth it if the food was good as John hadn’t treated himself to anything in quite a long time.

“Well come on, you’re not going to be fed by just standing there,” Sherlock said impatiently as he came up behind him and continued on to the door of the restaurant, opening it and stepping aside to allow John to go in before him, surprising John yet again as Sherlock went from being rude and abrupt to at least somewhat gentlemanly within seconds. John sighed a little and walked forward to head into the restaurant with Sherlock right behind him, and then they were suddenly approached by a somewhat larger man who was already beaming.

“Angelo,” Sherlock greeted and John was surprised to see Sherlock actually smiling at the man, though the smile looked just a little forced.

“Sherlock! Come in, come in, sit down,” the man – Angelo – said, gesturing for the both of them to head toward an open table in the back corner of the restaurant. John raised an eyebrow at the rather…intimate setting of the restaurant that was dimly lit with small tables and quiet music. It was…disconcerting, honestly, as John wondered just why they were there. “Anything you wan’, Sherlock, on the house. For you and your date.”

John’s head shot up at the word date and he instantly started trying to correct the man but then Sherlock was talking over him as if there hadn’t been anything odd about that assumption and John’s cheeks were bright red as Sherlock spoke.

“I helped Angelo out of a bad bit of trouble a few years ago,” Sherlock said smoothly as the larger man clapped him on the back.

“Ahh he did more’n that,” Angelo replied and Sherlock shot the man another tight smile. “But the point is I owe ‘im, so go ‘head ‘n’ figure out what you want to eat and I’ll be right back.” John watched the man walk away in dismay and then he turned back to Sherlock who was apathetically scanning the menu, not seeming to be impressed with any of the options.

“What are we doing here?” John asked quietly after a moment of silence and Sherlock looked up at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Having dinner, I thought that would be obvious by the location,” Sherlock replied coolly as he glanced back down at the menu in his hands and John just sighed heavily and glanced down, deciding to just get the first thing he saw as he wasn’t particularly picky.

“So what sort of trouble did you get Angelo out of?” John asked after another few minutes, during which Angelo had brought a candle to the table much to John’s embarrassment and chagrin.

“He was suspected and nearly accused of committing a murder on the other side of London but in actuality he was attempting to rob the flat next to mine at the time of the homicide,” Sherlock said casually and John stared at him for a moment. Well that was..not what he’d been expecting.

“Ah..Well..That doesn’t really sound like too much help,” John said uncertainly.

“Of course it was, the penalty for murder is far more severe than that for attempted robbery. Either way he’s grateful and I get free food so it doesn’t really matter precisely how helpful it was,” Sherlock replied, still studying the menu. John just sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaning back in his chair and looking out of a nearby window, idly watching the cars and the people out on the street.

“So is this what you do after rehearsal, come to a restaurant for free food?” John asked curiously, figuring that while Sherlock had opted to spend time in his company John might as well figure out what he could about the enigmatic man.

“No,” Sherlock replied shortly and John waited for a moment or two before deciding that Sherlock wasn’t going to elaborate on that and he gave up on conversation, not really particularly wanting to carry on a conversation with Sherlock, no matter how polite it was, when it was clear that Sherlock wasn’t interested in maintaining his end of the discourse.

John and Sherlock sat in silence until a waitress came over to take their orders and then they resumed the silence with Sherlock looking around at the rest of the people in the restaurant and John looking out of the window, watching the cars and the people passing by outside.

“I don’t…I don’t typically go anywhere,” Sherlock randomly said, and it took John a moment to catch up to the fact that Sherlock was continuing his curt answer from before even though they hadn’t spoken to each other in almost ten minutes. “I usually just go home to my flat and get drunk,” Sherlock continued, clearing his throat uncomfortably, and John wondered why he was telling him this if it obviously made him so uncomfortable.

“Well that’s not so unusual,” John supplied, wondering if that was why Sherlock was uncomfortable. “I mean the rest of us just go to that corner pub and get drunk anyway,” John continued, smiling a little in the hopes of reassuring Sherlock. John noticed Sherlock giving him an odd look but he didn’t really have a chance to ask him why as just then the waitress came back with their food and Sherlock looked away from him again, and it was only then that John noticed that Sherlock’s gaze had been oddly intense even though he’d seemed uncomfortable.

 

\-----

 

Sherlock couldn’t help but stare at John in surprise, though he made sure to keep his expression as enigmatic as possible so as not to alert John to the fact that he was utterly and absolutely enthralling to Sherlock. When they’d come in and sat down, Angelo had implied that John was his date as Sherlock had instructed, and it had perfectly obvious, to Sherlock at least, that not only was John oddly upset by the idea of people assuming they were together, but it had also been obvious that John didn’t particularly like him all that much as a person in general. That unsettling fact aside, Sherlock couldn’t help but be rather confused and surprised by the fact that John still did not get up and leave as people had done to Sherlock in the past, nor did he bore Sherlock with inane chatter once he’d realised that Sherlock was never one for small conversation. He was going out of his way to make sure that he didn’t bother Sherlock, which was odd as John didn’t like him, why would he bother to behave acceptably?

And then of course Sherlock had admitted, for the first time to anybody but Greg, that he simply got drunk on his own every night, a practice that he’d been assured was a pitiful behaviour on several occasions, and John, apparently not even knowing the reason for Sherlock’s discomfort in revealing that personal detail, had still tried to reassure him, to make sure that Sherlock’s discomfiture didn’t last long. Sherlock didn’t understand it, this being kind and considerate to someone who wasn’t liked, but he figured it just had to do with the fact that John seemed to be the most complex person Sherlock had ever encountered.

Sherlock hardly touched his food, as he knew he wouldn’t, instead he tried to think of some way to salvage the evening. Of course his original plan, of inviting John to dinner and telling him that he at least wanted to spend more time in his company (Sherlock wasn’t quite ready to admit that he might actually have some sort of… _feelings_ for John), was completely out of the question since he’d seen John’s reaction to Angelo’s scripted implications, and now Sherlock had to think of some viable excuse as to why he’d asked John to dinner in case the man asked.

It was about halfway through the meal when John noticed that Sherlock wasn’t eating, instead he was just looking around the restaurant, watching the other patrons and picking out little details about their lives, little bits of information to keep him interested so he wouldn’t accidentally blurt out the true reason he’d asked John to dinner with him.

“Not eating?” John asked curiously and Sherlock’s focus returned to him and he was immediately analysing everything about John again, despite the fact that he’d just tried to satiate his mind’s hunger for information while John had been eating.

“No, I find that Angelo’s food, though decent, is not particularly appetising to me the majority of the time. I don’t eat terribly frequently,” Sherlock replied lazily, noticing that a flash of concern passed across John’s kind features.

“That doesn’t sound particularly healthy,” John hazarded and Sherlock, for once, didn’t immediately spit out a biting retort as he usually did when somebody like Greg pointed out his unhealthy habits. “Shouldn’t you be trying to take good care of your body as an actor? Especially since tomorrow is opening night.” Sherlock’s eyebrow twitched up a little as he considered whether or not to respond how he normally would to such a presumptuous statement, but…there was something about John that made Sherlock want to at least attempt to behave normally at least at first and so instead he just studied John for a moment, noting with a hint of curiosity that the man immediately looked somewhat embarrassed for some strange reason, and then he responded with what he was fairly sure was a civil response.

“Technically yes, I suppose I should,” Sherlock said slowly, and it was about as close as he’d ever come to admitting that his habits were wrong and unhealthy. “But I find that I prefer the way I feel with my current habits, and it does nothing to impede my performances, as you’ve already seen.” Sherlock watched a quick flash of vague amusement cross John’s face and he wondered at the reason, amusing himself for a moment by trying to figure out the reason behind it as he hadn’t said anything funny. But then John was explaining it, at least in part, and Sherlock found himself giving a slight hint of a crooked smile in return before he could stop himself.

“I find it amazing that you can admit that you’re wrong and then pontificate again in the same breath,” John said with a slight smile before taking another bite of his food. Sherlock took a sip of the wine Angelo had brought him, his favourite, and he forced himself to look away from John lest his mind get caught up in making small observations – Sherlock tended to stare when he was figuring things out about somebody and he’d learned that that wasn’t necessarily an acceptable thing to do. “But still,” John continued, to Sherlock’s surprise, and his gaze immediately snapped back to the man across from him. “You said that you go home and get drunk, right?” John asked cautiously and Sherlock just nodded, not caring that that was probably a rude question considering how uncomfortable Sherlock had been in admitting that particular quirk. “Well…If you don’t eat regularly, am I right in guessing that you get awful hangovers?” John continued, seeming to be slightly incredulous toward the fact that Sherlock hadn’t gotten frustrated with him yet.

Sherlock considered lying for a moment, but instead he just nodded and took another sip of the rather good wine. “I would say so, yes,” Sherlock responded, figuring he knew exactly where John was going with this line of questioning and slightly confused at himself as to why he wasn’t trying to stop John from continuing.

“Well, if you ate something, just a little bit of something, before you got drunk, I’ve learned from experience that hangovers might not be quite so bad if there’s something else to cushion the blow from the alcohol. Of course that also sort of depends on how much alcohol is consumed, but still. Eating helps.” John still looked nervous as he spoke and Sherlock figured that he understood why since he hadn’t given anybody a reason to suspect that his temper wasn’t so easily incurred any more, and so he did his best to exude the calmness he felt, though he got the feeling that if it had been Greg or somebody trying to tell him the same thing that he would’ve been mildly irritated.

“I have heard that, yes,” Sherlock responded after a moment and John seemed relieved that he hadn’t exploded into frustration. Sherlock sighed a little and glanced down at his plate, wondering if eating would please John, and he figured that the only way he’d figure out was through experimentation. Sherlock picked up his fork and speared a small bite of food on the tines, raising it to his mouth and eating the small bite, chewing slowly as he wasn’t hungry and he found eating to be unpleasant if he wasn’t hungry. But John gave him a small smile a moment later that Sherlock had every intention of seeing again so he swallowed the bite of food and moved to pick up another one, finding that the second bite was a little easier to stomach than the first had been.

John and Sherlock ate in silence, with John clearing his plate and Sherlock making a small but impressive (for him) dent in his own portion, and then he and John were outside a few minutes later, and Sherlock was at a loss as to what to do from there. He figured that the polite thing to do would be to ask John what he wanted, but he wasn’t sure how to go about doing that so instead he hailed a cab and slipped in beside John, telling the cabbie his own address before settling in and turning to John.

“If you’re accustomed to getting drunk at that god awful corner pub, I’m sorry to have disrupted your routine. If you’d still like to have something to drink, I can assure you that my flat is well stocked with alcohol of a higher calibre than what you could find in that pub if you’d like to come to my flat for a little while,” Sherlock said cautiously, wondering how to word his proposition to make sure that it didn’t sound like he was trying to get into John’s pants or something like that. John looked thoroughly startled at the offer and Sherlock was instantly trying to find out a way to backtrack, though John responded before he could.

“That actually sounds nice, if you’re offering because you actually want me to come over,” John said with another smile and Sherlock blinked once in surprise. Sherlock nodded vaguely once and then settled further down into his seat, turning his head a bit to the side to hide the small, crooked, but certainly happy smile that was twitching up one corner of his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, comments are always appreciated. I'm so sorry it took me forever to update this, but school is absolutely horrendous and I never have time to sit down and write out these big chapters any more, what with pretending to do homework and sleeping off my stupid exhaustion. Anyway, I probably won't be updating very quickly, not going to lie to you guys, but I'm going to try writing a little bit more every day to see if I can just build up the chapter slowly instead of trying to sit down and write five pages at a time. We'll see. So anyway, thanks for reading, and don't forget to comment :)


	6. Drunken Lullabies

John was actually relieved that the rest of the car ride passed in complete silence as he wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to answer Sherlock intelligently or even coherently at the moment, not when his thoughts were racing off their tracks and self-destructing in the nearby fields.

Okay, so he was going home with Sherlock Holmes, and if everything went according to plan they were both going to get drunk, and then John would either have to find his way home on his own or he’d be camping out on Sherlock’s couch.  Now, John could easily hold his alcohol, that wasn’t a problem. But what was a problem was that, though he could control himself, he was less likely to, and there was a thought that had been hovering at the back of his mind for a week now that he was going to have trouble ignoring when he was buzzed or even genuinely drunk.

John just figured, though, that he’d have to deal with that little issue if/when it became a problem for anyone but him, and his thoughts had calmed down to a normal level by the time the cab stopped, and once again Sherlock paid the fare before John could have a chance to offer. John got out of the car and waited for Sherlock to come around to his side as well, following him across the pavement and up to the nondescript door of a building, the door marked with a simple 221, and John couldn’t help but be rather impressed that Sherlock had a flat in a prime spot in central London in a very nice neighbourhood, and he wondered how he afforded it on an actor’s salary, though knowing Sherlock had probably got paid far more than all the other actors simply because he would’ve demanded it.

“Well come on, don’t just stand there staring at my neighbours,” Sherlock said impatiently from inside the darkness of the building and John hurried to step inside, shutting the door behind him and rapidly noticing the rather unnerving sensation of feeling Sherlock right in front of him and being completely unable to see him as there were no windows in this part of the building, and there were no lights anywhere to be seen. John was tempted to reach out and see if he could feel exactly where Sherlock was, but that wasn’t an option simply because he seriously had no clue where to start searching, and if he made a mistake then it could turn out to be extremely embarrassing and uncomfortable for both of them.

John’s spine stiffened a little as he thought he felt the ghost of a warm breath against his ear, a solid warmth in front of him that he couldn’t seem to perceive with any of his normal senses, and John’s eyes drifted closed though it didn’t matter anyway as he still couldn’t see a thing.

“You hurt your hands today,” Sherlock murmured directly against his ear and John’s breath hitched uncertainly, his fingers flexing by his sides as he remembered all of the little cuts on his hands from where he’d been hastily picking up glass during rehearsal.

All John could do to answer Sherlock was to hum a quiet, “Mhm,” of agreement and he suppressed a shiver as another breath warmed the side of his neck this time and he tipped his head back a little, trying to ignore the slow curl of warm desire in his belly at the intimacy of having another person directly in front of him but not touching him in any way whatsoever.

“Do they hurt?” Sherlock asked gently, one fingertip ghosting slowly down the centre of John’s palm from the inside of his wrist and all the way down to the tip of his middle finger, and John’s breath hitched again, his fingers curling inward instinctively though the touch had already disappeared.

“No,” John breathed quietly and then he cleared his throat, feeling a little silly for getting so worked up over the current situation, especially since Sherlock wasn’t even touching him. “I mean…yes I suppose so, but I’m used to it, it doesn’t bother me,” John continued, wanting to seek out that gentle touch again but unsure of how to go about it, or how he was supposed to handle this sudden desire to have Sherlock put his hands on his body, touch him in the dark of his building and let his warm breath tickle his skin with a mere suggestion of what his mouth could do. It was a foreign feeling, wanting Sherlock so badly, and John elected to at least attempt to ignore it.

“Hmm…If you’re sure,” Sherlock hummed and then John abruptly felt that warm sense of another presence leave him, and he sagged against the wall behind him, his breathing ragged as he heard Sherlock’s sure footsteps on the stairs, his head hanging as he heard a door open upstairs on what sounded like the next floor.

John scrubbed his face slowly, wondering just what the hell that had been about, but he couldn’t stand there in the darkened front hall all night, so he elected to head toward the staircase that he’d heard Sherlock ascend, his way a little easier going than before as there was dim light coming down from upstairs now, and in comparison to the pitch black from moments before it was just enough to see the stairs by, though John still moved carefully until he was in sight of the second floor landing, where a door to his left was open and a door directly in front of him was shut, though John was fairly positive they led to the same flat.

John stepped through the door to his left and he got what felt like his first true glimpse into Sherlock’s private life, stepping into his kitchen that was full of odds and ends – test tubes in the sink, bottles of alcohol (empty, half-full, or full) scattered across the counter tops along with mugs and tea cups, textbooks stacked up on the kitchen table, and when John turned to his right to look through the doorway he was greeted with the sight of a human skull on the mantelpiece, grinning at him maniacally, and John just raised an eyebrow.

“Took you long enough. What sort of alcohol do you prefer?” Sherlock asked from behind him and John whipped around to see Sherlock emerging from a hallway beside the fridge that John had failed to notice at first glance, and he was clad only in pyjama trousers and a t-shirt, and though John had seen Sherlock in less, now that he was in the man’s home it felt oddly…intimate. Though that could also have to do with the brief and almost unbelievable encounter in the front hall downstairs.

“Oh..Uh.. Whatever you’ve got. I usually go for beer at the pub, but I like scotch if I can get it..Anything, really. I’m not picky,” John replied after a moment and Sherlock just nodded at him as if that was the answer he’d been expecting and he headed over to what was supposed to be a pantry though John immediately noticed that it simply contained bottles of alcohol, and John was mildly intrigued to see that the pantry had been rigged up to be a cooler, and John wondered if Sherlock had done that himself. At this point he wouldn’t be surprised.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Sherlock said absently as he rummaged around in the pantry/cooler and John turned back to the living room, stepping into the somewhat open space, glancing at the skull on the mantle again before surveying the rest of the room, taking in the couch that was pushed to the far wall and that looked too small to fit Sherlock comfortably, a coffee table in front of it, a desk between the windows and then…nothing else. Nothing at all. There was just a wide open, empty space for the rest of the room that was taken up only by an ornamental rug, and John couldn’t help but feel that the place was unfinished, missing something vital though he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“So do I even want to know why you have a human skull on your mantle?” John called out conversationally and he turned to face Sherlock as the man appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, looking mildly surprised to hear that he had a human skull in his flat.

“He’s a friend,” Sherlock replied instantly and John stared at him. “Well…I say _friend_ …” Sherlock added slightly uncomfortably before seeming to brush it off as he stepped forward to hand John a bottle of (very nice) scotch and a short glass, and John raised his eyebrows.

“Jesus, do I get an entire bottle to myself?” John asked with a grin and he felt almost rewarded to see Sherlock smile almost imperceptibly in return.

“If you’d like. I might take a little bit of it, that’s my favourite label, but no more than a glass or two, and a small one at that. Other than that it’s all yours. I’ll be over here drowning myself in god-awful vodka,” Sherlock replied as he stepped past John to flop down on one end of the couch, propping his bare feet up on the coffee table, and Sherlock was mildly flattered that Sherlock seemed to make sure that there was enough room on the couch for John as well, though logically it wasn’t as if John had much of an option as to where to sit, the couch being the only place in the living room unless he wanted to sit on the floor, which he really didn’t.

John moved over to sit down on the other end of the couch, slouching down a little bit and spreading his knees as he got comfortable, opening up the bottle and pouring himself a generous glass of the scotch before he set the bottle down on the coffee table and settled into a surprisingly comfortable silence and started drinking.

 

\-----

 

Most of Sherlock’s experiments came from planning and forethought, but sometimes, like with his little stunt upon entering the building, they came from sudden bursts of inspiration, sudden flashes of serendipitous certainty and quick calculations that resulted in an immediate and nearly flawless stage of an experiment. He’d been able to detect John’s exact position in relation to him in the quick glance he’d gotten in the light from the streetlamps just before John had closed the door, and he’d kept that firmly in the front of his mind, cornering John before the man could move and before he’d even realised he’d been cornered.

But that was where Sherlock had hit a small, unexpected snag, and that was the fact that he found his proximity to John to be intoxicating, the smell of his shampoo and aftershave strong in Sherlock’s nostrils, his warmth a mere hairsbreadth away, so easily accessed, within easy range of his touch. He’d been unable to speak for a long minute, closer to two, just standing there with his head bowed his hands aching to feel John’s muscles against his palms, but eventually he’d been able to pull himself together enough to talk to John quietly, attempting to gauge his reaction based on the tone of his voice when he responded, and Sherlock was pleased to find that he’d flustered John with his proximity as well as by approaching him in the darkness of the building’s entry. He’d noticed that night during rehearsal, when he’d approached John in the wings after the incident with the glasses, that the man seemed surprised by Sherlock’s willingness to get close to him, his active choice to get into John’s personal space to talk to him, and he’d remembered John’s flustered surprise only when he’d had the opportunity to recreate the situation to an even better degree, and it had worked to perfection.

By the time John had composed himself enough to come up to Sherlock’s flat, Sherlock had been able to retreat to his room and calm his own body’s reaction down as he'd gotten changed, re-emerging into his kitchen looking as unflappable as always, and he’d been able to answer John’s questions smoothly, with no hint of the fact that he’d just been testing his own ability to affect John’s lust and desire at unexpected moments, and that John had responded just as Sherlock had hoped.

He was undeniably attracted to John, he wasn’t going to ignore that, but attraction was a mostly useless emotion, especially from a biological standpoint in Sherlock’s case as there was no reason for sexual desire – no child would ever result of it as Sherlock was only ever even potentially interested in sex with men and so the urge to ‘reproduce’ made no sense, and sex was extremely boring anyway, full of annoying noises and fluids and sloppy kissing – unpleasant. John was different. John was attractive in his own way, unique in a way Sherlock had never seen, and frustratingly, maddeningly unfathomable. And, apparently, also attracted to Sherlock at least on some level, or he would’ve pushed him away in the hall or he would’ve at least been unaffected by Sherlock’s advances, which he certainly hadn’t been as it had taken him at least a minute or two to compose himself and he still didn’t seem exactly fine.

Sherlock was grateful that he didn’t have any more furniture as John was basically forced to sit out the couch next to him, giving Sherlock an opportunity to catalogue things about him that Sherlock could only see when they were in close proximity, which they almost never were. Not for long anyway.

About a third of the way through his bottle of vodka, Sherlock realised that it was probably a bad idea to be sitting so close to John, though, as he was finding it difficult to ignore the fact that he was still humming with energy from his experiment downstairs, and he wanted to give into it, wanted to learn what every inch of John’s body felt like underneath his, how he moved, how he responded to advances that would’ve been unwelcome earlier that very same day, and would perhaps be unwelcome now.

“What was that? In the hall?” John eventually slurred out and Sherlock looked over at him, stretched out and looking less flustered now and definitely drunk.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Sherlock replied smoothly, carefully disguising the slur that could have been in his own voice easily. Sherlock sighed as just then he felt his mobile buzzing in the pocket of his dressing gown and he pulled it out, quickly scanning through the text from Greg and actually deciding to answer it as it would give him time to think of a plausible answer to John’s question, which he probably should’ve already been doing but oh well, hindsight’s 20/20.

_So, the word around the theatre is John left the theatre with you tonight, and sure enough he wasn’t at the pub with the rest of us tonight. Something you want to tell me? –GL_

_Absolutely not, I have nothing to share with you. And you are going to get nowhere with the line of questioning you’re thinking of pursuing with me. –SH_

_I haven’t even started, how can you know what I’m thinking? –GL_

_Because your simple thoughts and the gossip you would hear would be all too easy to deduce. But I’m not in the mood to deal with you right now. -SH_

_And what_ are _you in the mood for? –GL_

_I’m in the mood for drinking and right now you’re interrupting that. –SH_

_Sherlock, just…be careful, okay? I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you make my best crew member quit, I’ll make your life even more hellish than you already pretend it is. John’s a good man, and if you get together with him then please just make sure that he doesn’t decide that it’s uncomfortable to work with who he’s sleeping with and then quit. We need him around here. –GL_

_Duly noted. I’m well aware that you lot would be lost without John. Now leave me alone, you’re being more annoying than usual. –SH_

_Fine. Goodnight, Sherlock. Don’t get too hung over. –GL_

Sherlock sighed in irritation at Greg’s texts and when he was sure that Greg wouldn’t send another one, Sherlock put the mobile down on the floor and slid it across the room, having no interest in answering any more texts that night. Sherlock looked over at John again to continue their conversation and he found John staring at him with open curiosity and Sherlock simply returned the look.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Sherlock asked after a moment and John just shook his head slowly before looking away from him to take a long gulp of the scotch Sherlock had given him.

“That bit in the hall…” John said thickly once he’d swallowed the alcohol. “Why?”

“Why what, John? You’re going to have to be more specific,” Sherlock replied, noticing how John’s head twitched toward him at Sherlock’s use of his first name as he called him ‘Watson’ the majority of the time.

“Why the…closeness?” John asked indelicately and Sherlock sighed imperceptibly, turning sideways on the couch to curl up on his end, resting his head against the back of the couch and closing his eyes as he clutched the bottle of vodka close to his hip.

“I was merely asking after the injuries on your hands as I could have bandaged them for you if they were bothering you. And the proximity was because of the darkness of the hall, I needed to know where you were,” Sherlock replied, the excuse extremely flimsy and easily disproved and he just had to hope that John wouldn’t notice that in his drunken state. Sherlock returned John’s speculative look calmly, watching as John set down his empty glass, seeming to realise how drunk he was and that he should probably stop.

Sherlock wasn’t quite sure how John ended up on top of him, but before Sherlock’s own drunken mind could really analyse things, the bottles of alcohol were on the coffee table, but more importantly John was on top of him, stretching his legs out with a surprisingly gentle touch so that he could lie down properly, and Sherlock’s hands were balled into tight fists in John’s black t-shirt that identified him as crew for the show, and that also happened to cling tightly to his figure, showing off every muscle he had and leaving little to the imagination, and Sherlock’s imagination was delightfully active all of the sudden.

“Okay. What’s the real reason?” John asked, his voice remarkably clear and Sherlock blinked in surprise, actually rather impressed that John had been able to fool him, _him_ , into thinking that he was drunk.

“This,” Sherlock replied carefully as John studied his expression from above him, one hand buried in Sherlock’s hair and it had been so long since someone had run their fingers through his hair simply because they wanted to that the touch felt physically different from all the times he’d had his hair styled for a show. “This was what I was hoping for,” he added, sincerely worried that he was about to make John angry.

He didn’t look angry, at least, but John definitely looked surprised at Sherlock’s answer and he also looked as if he was trying not to lean down and snog Sherlock senseless.

“You wanted me to pin you down on your couch?” John asked incredulously and Sherlock studied him for a moment before nodding once, his lips pressed together into a tight line. John sighed quietly above him and hung his head, hiding his expression from Sherlock’s view, and Sherlock stayed silent, not moving his hands from where they were balled up against John’s chest though he really wanted to feel the muscles of John’s arms and back while he was in a position to do so.

“Why now?” John asked quietly and Sherlock’s brow furrowed, his mouth turning down in a vague frown.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you telling me this now?” John leaned down, then, and Sherlock was unsure of what he was going to do until the moment when John’s lips pressed to his chest through his shirt and Sherlock’s hands relaxed just a little bit in John’s shirt as he took a deep breath, feeling like some annoying buzz in the back of his mind was shut off as soon as John’s lips were on him, even through the barrier of his thin t-shirt.

“If I had told you sooner would you have tolerated the idea?” Sherlock asked in a quiet hum, his voice low and deep, almost inaudible.

“No.”

Sherlock tilted his head back and a little to the side as John’s lips touched his bare skin, travelling slowly up the side of his neck and to his ear, and Sherlock was surprised to find that his breathing was shallow and quicker than it should be, and John’s heart was hammering under his hand. Sherlock smoothed out his hands on John’s chest and slowly ran one hand up John’s chest to cup the side of his neck, his fingertips pressing into a tight muscle on the back of John’s neck and he felt John’s sigh tickle the side of his neck just under his ear.

“You know…some of the costume girls talk about you at the pub,” John hummed against Sherlock’s skin and it took Sherlock’s scrambled mind a moment to focus on what John was saying.

“I have no interest in the idle gossip of idiots,” Sherlock replied, the following ‘Not when you’re being so beautifully distracting’ plainly obvious in his tone, though John continued anyway so perhaps it wasn’t that obvious.

“They have crushes on you, and they extol your virtues to each other every bloody night, giggling and fanning themselves. And until now there was only one assessment I would agree with,” John murmured and though Sherlock was keen to hear what John thought of him now, he was also extremely intrigued by what positive thoughts John had had of him before Sherlock had focused on seducing him and then proceeded to get him tipsy.

“Well I’m never going to know what it is until you tell me,” Sherlock replied after a moment or two of John kissing his neck sensually and he felt John shiver just the smallest bit against his hands.

“It’s that,” John breathed and Sherlock’s teeth found his lip before he’d realised he wanted to, his white teeth a contrast to the pink fullness of his bottom lip.

“It’s what? You’re being maddening,” Sherlock informed John with no venom in his voice, instead just impatience for John to get to the point so his mouth could then be otherwise occupied.

“Your voice…God it’s obscenely sensual,” John replied and Sherlock blinked his eyes open in surprise.

“How can a voice be sensual?” Sherlock asked curiously and he felt John press a firmer kiss to the corner of his jaw.

“I don’t know, but yours is. It’s deep and gravelly and just…I don’t know,” John replied against his skin and Sherlock smirked slowly.

“Are you always so articulate?” Sherlock asked and he practically felt John rolling his eyes, his favourite, passive form of expressing irritation with Sherlock.

“Oh just shut up for once in your life,” John replied and Sherlock was about to protest that so far they’d been drinking in complete silence but when John’s lips pressed against his, Sherlock understood what he’d meant so he certainly wasn’t going to complain, he could just correct John later.

John’s mouth was exactly what Sherlock would have expected – warm, gentle, his lips just slightly chapped because John had better things to worry about (read: everyone else) before he worried about himself. But what Sherlock hadn’t expected was how satisfying it felt to press his lips to someone else’s and to feel him responding eagerly, seeking out the press of his mouth just as much as he was seeking out John’s. Sherlock’s hand that was still on John’s chest slid down to his waist and then Sherlock wrapped his arm around John, pulling him down to press flush against him, their bodies warm and soft as they pressed together, their breathing quicker than usual as their mouths separated and came back together over and over, their lips locking together flawlessly each time, and it quickly became obvious that they were both fantastic kissers, which just made everything even better.

Sherlock started to deepen the kiss, make it more complicated, and he immediately felt John respond by adding his own pattern, his mouth moving against Sherlock’s but together at the same time, and of course Sherlock’s next response was to complicate it further, adding a swipe or two of the tip of his tongue to the mix, and John immediately responded in kind, making Sherlock have to hold back a small groan of pleasure.

By the time they broke apart for air, Sherlock’s heart was hammering in his chest and he was fairly sure he’d never been so thoroughly kissed in his entire life, despite the fact that he’d been quite popular at Uni for the simple reason that he liked to sleep around (for an experiment, naturally, but nobody had needed to know that). Sherlock turned his head to the side, facing the back of the couch, as John leaned in to bury his nose in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, his breathing slightly heavier than normal, warming Sherlock’s neck with each exhale.

“Where the bloody hell did you learn to kiss like that?” John asked against his neck and Sherlock smirked slowly, figuring that he needed to add another category to his analysis of John’s personality, and that was his reactions to Sherlock when he’d just been thoroughly snogged and had certainly seemed to enjoy it. There were just so many facets of John’s personality to consider that Sherlock was fairly certain even he would have trouble keeping up, but he was going to try.

“Uni,” Sherlock replied quietly, his voice slightly rougher than before, making John shiver against him and kiss a sensitive spot on his neck that he must have noticed when he’d been kissing Sherlock’s neck earlier as his kiss was in the perfect place to make Sherlock tilt his head to expose his neck further, biting back a moan. “I had a bit of a reputation, and I learned from..a pretty diverse group of people,” Sherlock added and he was surprised to hear and feel John chuckle quietly against his neck.

“Oh, so you were that guy. We had one of those guys where I went.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sherlock asked curiously and John pulled back, instantly looking apologetic, though Sherlock didn’t understand why as he wasn’t mad.

“Oh god no, that came out sounding bad didn’t it?” John asked worriedly and Sherlock’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t know. Did it?” Sherlock asked, completely and utterly lost as to John’s train of thought by this point, and it was something he didn’t like feeling but with John it seemed to be a default setting. John just studied him for a moment before leaning in slowly to kiss him softly and Sherlock immediately responded, closing his eyes and returning the kiss, and this alone seemed to reassure John as he didn’t look troubled when he pulled back, seeming unable to resist pressing another single, soft kiss to Sherlock’s slightly parted lips.

“Oh my god,” John sighed, leaning in to bury his face in Sherlock’s neck again and Sherlock was immediately concerned.

“Something wrong?” Sherlock asked quietly, sincerely hoping that the answer was no, though honestly he couldn’t think of why John would suddenly hide his face from Sherlock.

“What the hell are we doing?” John asked, his voice muffled by Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock had the odd sensation of feeling his heart sink, something he had never given credit to as an actual sensation though now he could tell that it certainly had some merit.

“We’re having a rather fantastic snog,” Sherlock answered, and he felt John laugh quietly into his neck.

“What I mean is why?” John answered, though he sounded a little more relaxed this time and Sherlock relaxed unconsciously in response, taking most of his cues from John in this particular situation.

“Because if I’m not mistaken we find each other attractive and there’s no reason we shouldn’t act on that. Though I also believe the alcohol had an instrumental part in getting you comfortable enough to hit on me,” Sherlock replied quietly and John laughed openly against his neck, though it was more of a happy giggle and Sherlock was instantly determined to get John to laugh like that again, no matter what it took.

“God you’re an idiot,” John breathed against his neck and Sherlock frowned, wondering if he should take that as an insult even though John’s voice hadn’t implied any sort of slight against him and John finally pulled back to look at him and he was smiling just a little bit. “I know _why_ we’re having a snog on your couch, Sherlock, I just…I literally don’t know how to explain this logically, and I get the feeling that that’s all you’re going to recognise at the moment.”

Sherlock studied John’s expression for a moment, a frown on his lips, and he saw John’s eyes flicker down to his mouth and then there was no way for Sherlock to effectively frown as John was kissing the corners of his mouth and his bottom lip that Sherlock supposed was pouting out just a little, and it quickly became obvious that John was attempting to kiss the frown from his lips, and was doing a fantastic job of it.

John pulled away after a moment though and he reached up to slowly push his fingers through Sherlock’s unruly curls and Sherlock sighed gently, his eyes slipping closed as he leaned into the touch.

“I guess what I meant was…don’t we sort of hate each other?” John asked against Sherlock’s mouth and Sherlock didn’t bother to open his eyes as he responded.

“I do not hate you, John,” Sherlock murmured. “I did. But now it’s more of an aggravation that I find you utterly and completely enthralling, absolutely fascinating, and I cannot figure you out. Your personality escapes me where others’ are easy to figure out, and I’m extremely frustrated with myself for being unable to identify just what it is that makes you so remarkable.”

Sherlock opened his eyes as John’s mouth moved away from his and he saw John’s shock on the man’s face and he wondered briefly if he’d said too much, but then John was kissing him in earnest and Sherlock responded just as enthusiastically, wrapping both arms tightly around John, one around his waist and one around his shoulders, as John’s mouth moved greedily against his, his hand fisting in Sherlock’s hair and finally drawing a quiet moan from his throat, the sound more of a nearly inaudible rumble in Sherlock’s chest.

The feverish kiss continued until Sherlock’s mind almost went blank from a startling lack of oxygen, despite how deeply he was breathing through his nose, and he figured John had been facing the same problem as the man pulled away with a small gasp for air and panted against Sherlock’s lips briefly before he started trailing quick kisses down his jaw and the side of his neck before making his way back up Sherlock’s neck until their faces were level again and John offered him a breathless smile that was absolutely breath-taking and that Sherlock wanted to see more of, as often as possible. Preferably directed at him.

“Since when do you have a positive word to say about anybody, especially me?” John asked softly as he brushed his thumb against Sherlock’s forehead just at his hairline, gently pushing his curls away from his forehead.

“Since you yelled at me. I’m shocked that you’ve been unable to observe even that much, it’s all those idiots at the theatre can seem to talk about, my seeming change of heart,” Sherlock drawled lazily, rolling his eyes a little and John just smiled and shook his head a little.

“Actually, I think a better question might be when did I start finding your superior attitude amusing rather than the most annoying thing in all of Britain?” John added and Sherlock just smiled at him tentatively.

“Ah. Well that is actually one I can’t answer for you, though if I were to hazard a guess it would be when I came extremely close to kissing you in the front hall and you seemed perfectly willing to let me, though I figured I’d still better wait until you were drunk to actually attempt it.”

John seemed to consider that for a moment and Sherlock took the opportunity to pull his arm back from around John’s shoulders so he could press his palm to John’s cheek, marvelling at the silken smoothness of his skin, his skin warm and soft under his hand as John leaned into the gentle touch.

“You know…I think you might actually be right. Though I did think about quite a fair bit in the cab on the way here, and I believe that part of it was trying to figure out whether I was going to end up crashing on your couch or in your bed,” John murmured, his cheek flushing warmer against Sherlock’s palm and Sherlock smiled, though he had no intention of taking John to bed. Not tonight, anyway.

“I am usually correct, it’s an unfortunate habit of mine that apparently makes me seem pompous, though I don’t understand how anybody in their right mind could come to that conclusion,” Sherlock sniffed and John actually laughed, that adorable giggle again, and Sherlock smiled just a little, just a small twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“God I shouldn’t find that funny, I should find that as annoying as hell. How drunk am I?” John asked and Sherlock just shrugged a little bit underneath him.

“You ask the unanswerable questions, John. I have no idea how intoxicated you are, though apparently you’re sober enough to know to act drunk to get me to tell you things,” Sherlock said, slightly chastising, and John just grinned impishly at him.

“What, you think you’re the only one who can act? Please,” John scoffed and Sherlock chuckled quietly.

“Well obviously I’m not the only one who can _act_ , but I’m one of the few people on this island who can act _well_ ,” Sherlock replied and John laughed again.

“Okay, I think I’m getting giddy. I need to stop kissing you, it’s making me giddy,” John said as he tried to get his breath back and Sherlock felt an irrational surge of satisfaction at that, pleased that John was just as intoxicated by him as Sherlock was by him.

“Oh, now I’m afraid I can’t allow that. It’s completely unacceptable,” Sherlock replied before reaching up to press his hand to the back of John’s head and before he could even apply any pressure, John was leaning in to kiss him again, and Sherlock settled into the couch with a satisfied sigh, his legs wrapping over John’s to hold him in place and John didn’t complain, instead he just rested more of his weight on top of Sherlock and kissed him more deeply, their tongues rubbing over each other’s and tasting every inch of the other’s mouth.

 

That night Sherlock slept better than he had in months, his body still buzzing with the excitement of snogging John as well as the buzz of alcohol that had almost completely faded by the time he and John had finished around half three in the morning simply because neither of them could stay awake any longer. They fell asleep right there on the couch, though they readjusted to lie down in front of each other, Sherlock with his back to the rest of the room, facing John whose back was pressed to the back of the couch. The couch wasn’t nearly big enough for the two of them, but Sherlock didn’t mind as it just meant that he could press desperately close to John without it seeming odd, and John certainly didn’t seem to mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm sorry it's been so long in between chapters, but I'm on summer break from school now, which means I'm not all stressy which means I can THINK which is very good news for those of you who like this story because I'll hopefully be updating quite a bit within in the next two months, I've already got a lot of ideas for where I want the story to go :D So, fingers crossed that I can get them down on paper! As always, thanks for reading and comments are always appreciated. Ta!


	7. Good Morning

When John woke up it was first with a feeling of intense and uncomfortable confusion, his body trying to figure out why there was another body pressed against his, why there was somebody breathing so close to him that he could feel each exhale in his hair. But he hadn’t been so drunk as to forget the whole night, he’d only been comfortably tipsy, and so after a brief flash of confusion John was able to remember that he’d fallen asleep with Sherlock on Sherlock’s couch after snogging Sherlock rather thoroughly…and John’s heart sank.

It wasn’t that he regretted going home with Sherlock, and he hadn’t gotten embarrassingly drunk and shagged Sherlock or anything, it had just been a (bloody incredible) snog, but that didn’t necessarily mean that _Sherlock_ didn’t have morning after regrets, and John wasn’t quite sure he wanted to find out if Sherlock was alright with him being there or not. However, John didn’t really have a whole lot of options even if he did want to leave as Sherlock was pressed against him, his long, lanky, and yet decidedly graceful limbs tangled up around John as Sherlock slept heavily, both holding him in place as well as blocking his only escape from the room.

Normally John wasn’t so…restless after spending the night with someone, but the people he spent the night with weren’t Sherlock bloody Holmes, who seemed to have a complicated relationship with the entire world, and didn’t seem like the sort to have anybody spend the night with him, let alone someone as normal as John, despite Sherlock’s assertions from the night before that he found John fascinating.

“If you don’t stop fidgeting I’m going to murder you in your sleep,” Sherlock grumbled from above his head and John froze, a slow grin spreading across his face as he forced himself to settle down and relax, figuring that if Sherlock really did want him gone then he would’ve had no problem kicking him out as soon as possible.

“Sorry,” John apologised, his voice slightly muffled by Sherlock’s shirt and he felt Sherlock breathe deeply before going back to sleep in an instant, sort of baffling John and he wondered if Sherlock could always fall asleep like that or if he was just exhausted. John’s money was on exhausted.

As John couldn’t really move (and didn’t necessarily want to) and his view of the room was blocked by how his face was buried in Sherlock’s soft shirt, he didn’t really have much of an option except to go back to sleep, his eyes drifting closed as he focused on slowing his breathing down to match Sherlock’s relaxed pace.

 

John woke up again a little over an hour later, and this time it was to find that Sherlock was still in front of him but he was wide awake, his hand cupped against the back of John’s neck as his fingertips rubbed soothing circles onto the knots of tension that never seemed to leave, and John sighed, pressing a soft kiss to Sherlock’s chest in sheer gratitude as those were the knots he could never rub away, but Sherlock seemed to be doing a marvellous job of it.

“Since when are you a gentleman?” John asked quietly with a small smile and he felt Sherlock press his lips to the top of his head carefully, almost like he was afraid John was going to be angry with him for doing so.

“Since somebody decided I’m not as big of a fucking twat as everyone thinks,” Sherlock replied almost inaudibly, his chest vibrating just a little with the baritone timbre of his voice and John blinked in surprise, tilting his head back to look up at Sherlock, his brow slightly wrinkled in confusion and Sherlock pressed soft kisses to John’s forehead until he relaxed his expression. John wanted to ask what that meant, but he got the feeling that it had a bit more to do with Sherlock’s past than what John knew from the theatre and from the few rumours he’d heard, and he didn’t want to place Sherlock in that position. Instead he smiled and nuzzled the tip of his nose into the hollow of Sherlock’s throat.

“I didn’t say you’re not a twat, it’s just that you’re a ridiculously charming twat,” John teased lightly and he felt Sherlock try to process that for a moment before deciding that John really wasn’t being serious and he chuckled quietly, the sound just a little self-conscious and nervous, which was something John never thought he’d see Sherlock be.

“Don’t get used to it. Being charming is annoyingly tedious, though I must say it seemed to have a favourable outcome with you. Though I like to think that was more seductive than charming, at least to start with.”

John smiled and slipped his arm around Sherlock’s trim waist, and John felt oddly guilty as he felt Sherlock relax against him and John wondered just how worried he was in that odd brain of his.

“Seductive, right, of course, that’s exactly what I meant,” John replied lightly though John was fairly sure they both knew that that really was a valid adjective for Sherlock, especially since his goal had been to be attractive.

“So…what now, Sherlock?” John asked cautiously after a few minutes of silence and of Sherlock rubbing his neck and shoulders gently, slowly working out his tension almost absent-mindedly.

“I am conducting an experiment,” Sherlock informed John quietly and though John couldn’t really think of a reason as to why that was a logical thing to say next he stayed quiet because he was fairly sure that it would be explained to him if he waited long enough. And maybe that was what was wrong with other people, they didn’t stick around to wait for Sherlock to explain himself.

“I believe I told you a little about it last night. Your personality is…staggeringly complex, different from the thousands of other people I’ve studied in my lifetime. I can never predict how you will react to a unique situation, I was not anticipating your anger at me the day you finally broke down and yelled at me, I was not expecting you to behave so calmly and normally after that, despite the fact that your placid personality should have been indicative of such a reaction afterward. It all seems like it should be terribly obvious after it happens, I think ‘Oh, of course he would do that, because it’s John’, but before that, before I see you behave a certain way, I can never anticipate what you will do. You’re a variable, John, and I’m tired of attempting to observe you from afar…”

Sherlock trailed off then, obviously unsure of what to say next, and John smiled, tilting his head back to press a small kiss to the underside of Sherlock’s jaw.

“Is that an extremely complex way of complimenting me and saying that you want to spend more time with me?” John asked quietly and Sherlock seemed to consider it for a moment before he answered.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And just how much more time would you like to spend with me?” John asked teasingly, reaching down to press his palm to the outside of Sherlock’s thigh, ghosting his fingertips slowly and gently all the way up Sherlock’s hip, waist, rib cage, all the way up to his shoulder blade and John was pleased to feel a shiver go through Sherlock in response.

“As much as either of us can stand,” Sherlock breathed and John wondered just what the hell had changed during the course of one night to make him go from being irritated and annoyed with Sherlock to finding him amusing and intriguing, somebody he definitely wanted to spend time with, and John wondered if he was sort of doing an experiment of his own, figuring out just how much Sherlock could start to trust him, trying to find out how close he could get to Sherlock, and if being around Sherlock would ever be too much for him.

“So…dating?” John suggested tentatively and he felt Sherlock shrug a little bit, his shoulder blade moving a little underneath John’s hand as Sherlock shifted.

“Whatever you’d like to call it, I’ve never been one for labels in social situations as I find that people, though typically very easily classified and categorised, can also be quite fluid and changeable and labels create problems in the long run. But if you’d like to feel as if we’re dating, then by all means, go ahead. On my part, know that I would like to spend my evenings with you once we leave the theatre, and I’d definitely like to repeat last night, and possibly go further eventually, though that won’t happen for a while yet. And…I would like to have some sort of claim over your time, I would like for you to devote at least a small portion of your time to talking to me. Please. I’ll offer you the same in return,” Sherlock finished awkwardly and John smiled just a little bit. That certainly sounded like dating to him.

“Hmm…I’ll have to think about that for a while,” John said playfully and Sherlock stiffened a little, and John was quick to kiss the hollow of his throat reassuringly. “Sherlock I’m kidding. Yes I want that. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I don’t mind that you’re absolutely insufferable, and I’m not even going to dare to say that you’re pompous,” John chuckled and Sherlock smacked the back of his head playfully, not nearly hard enough to hurt. “But yes, I want to spend my time with you whenever possible. I hate it but you’re actually as incredible as you think you are,” John laughed and Sherlock smiled happily, ducking down to press a light kiss to John’s lips.

“The sooner people realise that I’m right about everything the better off we’ll all be,” Sherlock said imperiously and once again John was amazed that he mostly just found that amusing as opposed to annoying or abrasive.

They went silent after that for a little while, Sherlock rubbing away months of tension from John’s body with ease while John just pressed soft, open-mouthed kisses to Sherlock’s neck and collarbone, succeeding in finding at least two erogenous areas that he would definitely be exploiting later on. The comfortable silence continued until John’s stomach growled and John laughed quietly.

“I have no food in the flat but there’s a café downstairs if you’d like to get some lunch,” Sherlock murmured and John was surprised to look out of the window and find that Sherlock was most likely right, the lighting looked like it was around noon, possibly even one.

“Food sounds good. And then…well don’t you have to do anything to prepare for opening night tonight?” John asked curiously as he knew some of the other actors spent their afternoons going through their lines on stage for extra practice or even went through good luck rituals – actors were notoriously superstitious, in John’s experience.

“No. We’ve gone through six weeks of preparation, I believe that’s more than sufficient for the work required by this production. You, however, would probably like to return home to shower and change as I am going to. It’s your habit to take a daily shower, is it not?” Sherlock asked but not really, and John just nodded a little, amused (and flattered) that Sherlock had even gone so far as to notice little habits of John’s like that that should hardly matter, and yet it all seemed to matter in Sherlock’s brain.

“Sounds good to me. Now get your lazy arse off the couch so I can actually move,” John said lightly and Sherlock instead just moved to lay down on top of him, flopping his whole weight down on top of John and nuzzling into his neck.

“No. You’re exceedingly comfortable, and I’ve no interest in moving. I need persuading,” Sherlock hummed and John just grinned at the challenge before sliding his hand down Sherlock’s back to grip at his arse through the soft material of his pyjama bottoms and Sherlock’s breathing hitched, his mouth pressing to John’s neck firmly as John could tell he was fighting back some sort of noise of pleasure.

“If you move I’ll shove you up against a wall and snog you,” John murmured temptingly into Sherlock’s ear and he could practically hear Sherlock’s mind working as he thought through John’s offer, and then Sherlock’s weight was gone and John grinned, rolling up into a sitting position and rubbing at his eyes sleepily, just before Sherlock reached down to grab his hand and pull him swiftly to his feet.

“Jesus, Sherlock, give us a second,” John huffed and Sherlock just rolled his eyes dramatically before starting to walk away, and John grabbed his shirt roughly to instead shove him against the wall beside the arm of the couch, catching a quick glimpse of Sherlock’s excited grin before he was crushing his lips to Sherlock’s, careful not to use his tongue as it _was_ the morning and he’d had quite a bit to drink the night before, leaving his mouth tasting rather stale.

Sherlock still responded eagerly, though, wrapping his arms around John’s shoulders and hooking a leg around John’s to hold him as close as physically possible and John slipped a knee in between Sherlock’s legs, making the lithe man hum low in his throat and push his hips closer to John’s, seeking friction.

John jumped a little as there was a knock at the door and he felt Sherlock’s irritation, immediately moving his mouth to Sherlock’s neck as the man turned his head to direct his voice toward the door.

“Go away,” Sherlock shouted toward the door and John was pleased to hear Sherlock’s breath hitch as John bit down carefully on a sensitive spot on Sherlock’s neck.

“Sherlock, come on,” Greg entreated from the other side of the door and John turned his head to look at the door, but Sherlock instantly cupped his jaw to turn John’s head again, recapturing his mouth greedily, and John was far from complaining. Sherlock’s fingers twitched against John’s cheek as Greg knocked on the door again and said something that John didn’t bother to pay attention to, though Sherlock seemed to pay attention as a moment later he was turning his head again, giving John a second to catch his breath.

“Shut up,” Sherlock snapped, and John nipped at Sherlock’s neck again.

“Jesus, Sherlock, can’t you at least pretend to be polite?” John muttered against Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock just shook his head impatiently.

“Ugh, polite, polite is boring,” Sherlock grumbled before starting to kiss John’s neck in return, trailing open-mouthed kisses down to his shoulder and then back up to just behind his ear.

“Sherlock, just let me in, I promise I’ll be gone within half an hour. I just need to talk to you about something,” Greg called through the door again and Sherlock practically snarled in impatience, making John shiver even as Sherlock’s hands trailed greedily down his body once as it was becoming obvious that they were about to be interrupted.

“I’m busy,” Sherlock replied and John just knew that Greg was resisting the urge to smack his head on the door.

“Sherlock, just let him in,” John murmured breathlessly and Sherlock shook his head a little. “It’s not going to kill you to talk to him for half an hour,” John added and Sherlock made an irritated noise in the back of his throat but he gently pushed John away from him anyway, and John stepped back to instead settle back on the couch as Sherlock stalked over to the door and opened it in one jerky motion.

“I’m otherwise occupied, make it fifteen minutes,” Sherlock said ungraciously and Greg just sighed.

“Can I at least come in now, or are you going to stand there until I’m done talking?”

John was mildly amused to see that Sherlock seemed to be honestly considering the second option before stepping into the flat, opening up the doorway for Greg as he instead moved over to flop down on the couch, his feet in John’s lap, and John raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. Just this once.

Greg came in and shut the door behind him and stopped short at the sight of John sitting there looking perfectly comfortable on Sherlock’s couch.

“John. I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to be here,” Greg said after a moment and John just smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Honestly, I didn’t either,” John replied and Sherlock rolled his eyes impatiently, nudging John’s stomach with his toes.

“Shut up and let him get to the point so he can leave,” Sherlock said grumpily and John swatted at his leg.

“Pretend to be decent, it won’t hurt you,” John chastised and Sherlock sighed gustily as Greg just looked between the two of them in obvious shock, though he didn’t comment on the startlingly different dynamic between the two of them, though honestly John didn’t see how it was that much of a change since he was fairly sure that he was the one to bring about Sherlock’s relatively better attitude lately, it was just now John had more of a direct hand in guiding his behaviour.

\-----

Sherlock shot John a (good-natured) glare before nudging him with his toes again. “Shut up,” he said impatiently but without any malice and John just rolled his eyes but thankfully didn’t talk again and Sherlock turned his attention to Greg, who was just staring at the two of them incredulously.

“Right,” Greg said after a moment or two of expectant silence and Sherlock raised an eyebrow at Greg as he figured out exactly why Greg was there.

“No,” Sherlock said shortly and Lestrade just stared at him in surprise.

“You don’t even know what I have to say.”

“Yes I do, and the answer is absolutely not. I don’t want to see him today. Or any day, for that matter,” Sherlock replied shortly and Greg sighed, heading over to sit in the chair at the desk, pulling it out so he could sit across the coffee table from Sherlock.

“You know, if you would just go see him occasionally he wouldn’t drop by the flat unexpectedly, which I know for a fact you hate.”

“I really do not care right now. Tell him that I’m stressed because tonight’s opening night or some rubbish excuse of that sort, but I am in no mood to deal with him, I don’t care how guilty he made you feel for not really enforcing this particular stipulation. You should learn to harden yourself to his manipulations, something you’ve never been able to do.”

“He is not _manipulating_ me, Sherlock, he’s just concerned about you,” Greg protested and Sherlock huffed out an impatient breath, turning his head to stare hard up at the ceiling as John looked between the two of them in confusion, and Sherlock was glad he didn’t even bother to ask what was going on.

Everything was silent for a moment or two before Greg finally sighed in that way that meant that he was done trying to reason with Sherlock and Sherlock smirked just a little, pleased that he’d wormed his way out of another unwelcome meeting.

“I suppose it’s no use trying to reason with you, not when you’re stubborn and especially not when you’ve got an audience. I’ll see you both tonight, half-five, yeah?” Greg said and Sherlock stayed silent, letting John chip in just a beat too late.

“ ‘Course. See you later, Greg,” he said pleasantly and Greg just smiled thinly before letting himself out.

As soon as Greg was gone, Sherlock heaved an enormous sigh and slid halfway off the couch, his torso on the ground with his feet propped up beside John’s head on the back of the couch.

“Don’t you think putting your feet in my lap was a little much?” John asked from above him and Sherlock just smirked.

“Absolutely not, but I didn’t see you pushing my feet away so obviously you didn’t mind it too much.” Sherlock suddenly slid off to the side and was on his feet within a second or two, somehow managing to make even that clumsy dismount graceful in its own way.

“So did you still want to head downstairs for lunch?” Sherlock asked as he stretched his arms above his head, his shirt lifting a little to expose a pale strip of his stomach and when Sherlock looked back down at John he saw the man’s eyes quickly flicker up to his face and Sherlock smirked a little.

“I’m waiting on you, you know,” John said with a small smile and Sherlock looked down at himself with a sigh.

“Oh alright,” he said with a tone of long-suffering and John just rolled his eyes with a small smile as Sherlock walked away to his room to get changed into black trousers and a wine-red shirt, taking the time to brush his teeth and attempt to rearrange his wild hair before he headed back to the living room, wallet and key in hand as he headed toward the door where he’d taken off his shoes the night before. Sherlock turned around and looked at John expectantly before opening the door and immediately bounding down the stairs, hearing John follow after him at a slightly slower clip.

Sherlock held the front door open for John and then the door for Speedy’s as well mostly because he wanted to analyse the happily surprised look John got on his face when Sherlock did something unexpectedly gentlemanly for him. Sherlock followed John inside and took a deep breath, wondering if this would count as a date.


End file.
